The man with the branch strode past me, having broken it himself from a cemetery 
tree.  He maneuvered its eight-foot length between the granite markers as he brought 
it to the newly-dug grave.

We had reached the end of the ceremony of an ending, the part where the dozens of 
mourners had ceased to be governed by the formalities.  I had already shuffled under 
the funeral-home tent for my last whispered words to the departed, and was standing, 
straight and tall, by my father and my mother.  I did not understand what this man, a 
great-uncle or grand-cousin with a name I misremembered, was moving with such purpose 
to do.

He moved through the crowd as it began to disperse, some wanting to stay near, some 
glancing up at the overcast to judge whether the rain would begin again before they 
reached their cars.  Damp grass clippings clung to the man's freshly-shined shoes as 
he walked among them, carrying the branch through the opening gaps among us.

He met my uncle, the father of the deceased, at the side of the grave, held up the 
branch toward him, and said a few words.  My uncle tipped up his chin for a moment as 
he considered - one always considers for a moment before acting, regardless of the job 
site - and then nodded his assent.  The man with the branch then began what he'd 
brought that tool to do.

(The man was a licensed plumber; my uncle, the founder and long-time operator of a 
commercial plumbing business.  That trade runs proudly through my mother's side of the 
family, and many decades of plumbing experience were gathered there on that short and 
gloomy day.  More decades, were you to count those that my cousin was taking with him 
into the earth.)

The branch was slender enough to fit through the complex rigging which funeral homes 
erect at their job sites, and the man lowered it slowly into the hole, hand over 
gnarled hand.  The branch, it should be said, never touched the work others had done 
thus far.  My mother shifted uneasily, and opened her mouth; her other brother leaned 
across me to explain before she asked.

His decades spoke to us, tersely, giving the short explanation one gets when one is 
not on the crew.  "Checking for water down there.  Septic tanks, y'know, sometimes you 
have to knock a hole in the bottom."

My mother's chin tipped up, and her mouth closed.  I'm certain mine did as well.  We'd 
been around crews, both of us, in our lives, and knew we were expected to think it 
through ourselves.  We did,  while the branch came back above ground, carefully, 
hand-over-hand.

(Septic tanks have to sit at the proper depth, or pipes won't meet today.  They can't 
settle farther afterward, or pipes will crack before their proper decades have 
passed.  If you put a hollow thing down in enough water, it might try to float above 
where you need it to stay.  If you don't have a way to pump the water before you get 
that thing set, and you're running short on daylight to finish the job, you might just 
have to make a hole and let it flood.  Seal the hole once you get it sunk into its 
place, working through the murky groundwater.  You don't plan to do that, but late in 
the day when you've had a bit of rain, the ground can surprise you.  You can get a lot 
of wet in a hole you just dug a couple hours before, and late in the year the daylight 
can run out before you notice the pipes won't be right.)

More words across me, once my mom had thought the thoughts:  "He'd been asking about a 
flashlight to look down.  A day like today, it's best to check."

All the men who grow old with these thoughts understand the reflex, and they know how 
to improvise tools when something needs to be done. The man with the branch showed the 
working end of his improvisation to my uncle when it emerged.  A splotch of mud showed 
at its tip, but the branch was otherwise no more damp than the rest of that day.

My uncle nodded, and murmured his thanks as the branch was carried off.  (On a 
different job site, it would probably get broken over and leaned against a side of the 
hole to help fill, but not on that one.)  I saw him then rest his hand on the casket, 
a little pat to tell his only son he'd checked, to say it was time to go on with what 
needed to be done next.  

(You communicate like that, sometimes, at job sites when talking won't do.  Some 
number of us watching nodded, finding finally a thing we understood, on that too-short 
day, after my cousin's too-short decades.)

Having checked, my uncle then began again to try to step away.