funeral musings

I did a funeral today for a 49 year old woman. She was diagnosed 12 years ago with a rare and fatal disease. She decided to slow down and to treasure every day, every hour. I can't even imagine....
It never fails to move me...this honor we give the body even after death.
In a passage from the talmudic Tractate Megillah, page 3b, which Rabbi Ira Stone selects in his book Reading Levinas, Reading Talmud, we learn that reading the Megillah takes precedence even over the ancient Temple service. Then we are told that attending to a dead body, that is, showing honor to the remains of a human being, takes precedence over reading the Megillah.
What is this mitzvah, this sacred commandment, about? Respect is due a human being, so much so that even the body that once housed a human soul must be treated with dignity, with kavod. How much the more so a living person!