The Meaning of LIfe

I went to a funeral yesterday. It was unlike any funeral I have ever been to before. Not only was it held in one of the three Evangelical church buildings in Laos, but very few people in the room had ever met the departed. This was a service for a 71 year old American man who had been a pilot in Laos in the 60s and 70s and then returned to the country in the mid 90s. He was orphaned after his mother died and his stepmother killed his father. He left the care of his older brother when he was about 10 years old before joining the Marines at age 17. He married once, had no children and was separated from his wife before she died of cancer 15 years ago. He failed at several business attempts and had no meaningful relationships. He was a self-described recluse. His only friend was the owner of the Scandinavian Bakery where he helped set up the outside tables and chairs every morning in exchange for an omelet. It was this Swede who looked after him (and paid the hospital bill, I think) while he was dying a painful death of renal cell cancer metastatic to the bones. I met this man only once on the day he was admitted to the hospital. The residents tried to tell me his story, but even after talking to him in our native language, I was confused. Before I really delved into it too much, he was transferred to a private room in the ICU where he stayed for the next several weeks. I never made it back to see him before he died last Friday. The owner of the bakery asked the International Church community to visit the patient while he was out of town for a few days. Two men from the church went to see the man regularly for the next two weeks and they were the ones who arranged the funeral service for him. They had known him for only two weeks, during much of which he was on powerful narcotics.
What is there to say at a funeral for a man with no family, no friends no one to grieve and no clear religious preferences? As I sat and listened to the recounting of this sad story, I wondered if he had any regrets. Would he do things the same way again? I started to write that his life seemed to have little impact, but then I guess it has had an impact on me. It showed me that it is relationships that make life remarkable. I do not know the meaning of life, but it seems that if pleas have to be made to gather a handful of people to attend ones funeral, that is not it.