Death for relationships?

A hectic few days. Thursday was pretty cool. I spent most of the day studying, and finishing a project a few days ahead of time. Friday, I don't really remember much of apart from going to my friend's house for veggie lasagna and loads of wine. We spent most of the evening talking about death. She told me about a friend of hers who had died. The service in the church had been for everyone, but when it was time to lower the coffin into the ground only the family had been present. As my friend was walking home later that night, she decided to walk past the cemetary to see what the grave looked like. When she got there, she could see the whole in the ground, but the coffin wasn't there. Is there some sort of tradition/routine/whatever here that me and my friend are unaware of? After you lower the coffin in the ground, do you get it back up and store it somewhere over night?

Any old road, my friend has broken up with her boyfriend. He sent me an e.mail today saying something about wanting to tell me about it before he moves out. I really got the feeling as I was replying that we were talking about someone who'd died or something. And also, I felt a bit bad, because he started the e.mail going "I'm not going to do like [another friend's ex-boyfriend] and spend the next to hours telling you about mine and [my friend's] relationship". I mean, it's not like I wouldn't have listened if he would've wanted to. In the end, I replied in the shortest terms, along the lines of how I'd not yet spoken to my friend and didn't want to say too much, but wishing him good luck for the future and whatever. A bit sugary, I admit, but it kind of seemed polite at the time. Well, my friend's visiting next weekend so we can get pissed, talk about what's happened, gossip and just generally waste a bit of time together. So there.