Every person who has ever attended a funeral has had, at least for a moment, the thought: how do we know?

The story of Essie Dunbar provides a vivid, specific, human-scale answer to that question.

It says: we don’t always know.

Sometimes we get it wrong.

Sometimes the person in the coffin is still there, looking up at us when we open the lid.

And sometimes the only thing standing between a living person and permanent burial is a late-arriving sister who loved her enough to ask for one more look.

The story also carries a particular resonance when considered in the context of race and American history.