This funeral for an ice cream seller is impacting people around the world
Hassan Dervish spent the bulk of his adult life making and selling ice cream, a profession that made sense, family members say, for a man who loved to make people smile. According to The Washington Post, Dervish, “an ice cream man for more than 40 years” in the United Kingdom, recently died of cancer; his sendoff is having a big impact with strangers online. While funerals these days are often smaller affairs because of Covid-19 precautions, the death of an ice cream truck driver in the U.K. is rarely a quiet event affair—ice cream vendors have a longstanding tradition of driving their trucks to honor colleagues when they die. When it came time for Dervish’s burial, his hearse was followed by 10 ice cream trucks—all playing various jingles. “Just witnessed an ice cream man’s funeral and all the ice cream vans came and followed in solidarity,” tweeted a woman named Louisa Davies, whose video of the procession has garnered millions of views in the last week. “I AM SOBBING.” Us too, Louisa. —Jessica Terrell
