It snowed the night they buried her, which everyone said was auspicious, and the road up to the family ground was under four inches of it by the time the procession formed.
He carried the lantern because he was the eldest. His uncle told him twice what he already knew: walk in front, keep it lit, do not turn around.
The wind came off the ridge and the paper luffed and twice he thought the flame had gone, and both times it came back. Behind him he could hear them — the shuffle of the bearers, the drum, his aunt's crying, the whole weight of the family moving up the hill in his wake. He kept his eyes on the ten feet of snow in front of the lantern and he did not turn around, all the way to the top, and he was proud of that afterwards in the shabby way you are proud of small things at a funeral.
At the grave he set the lantern down and let his shoulders drop and finally looked back down the slope they had come up.
The snow was unmarked except for one line of footprints, and the line was his.
He was still working out what to say about it when his uncle came up beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder, and said, without any particular emphasis, that he had done it properly, and that the lantern had led her the whole way.
The bearers were setting the coffin down behind them. He could hear the drum. He had heard all of it, every step of the way up.
He did not turn around again.