Hope

Jane described the ambulance pulling in and paramedics racing out to the person lying in street. The attempts at resuscitation. The attempts to shock the heart into starting again. The person being taken into the ambulance and being driven away, quietly.

There's nothing worse, she said, than an ambulance leaving a scene like that quietly, no siren sounding...

The siren is like a signal of hope.

I remember as a child in Ireland, the custom to bless yourself when a funeral went silently by. I always thought that was the wrong time. I instead used to bless myself when the ambulance went blaring by... because then there was still hope for my prayers.