As predicted, Margie Reckard’s funeral yesterday evening was massive.

“Never had so much love in my life,” Basco said on Friday as he beheld the crowds, many who waited in triple-digit heat, to attend Reckard’s memorial service and support a man they had never met. When Reckard was killed, she left behind Basco, her partner of 22 years, who considered her his only close family. The couple had moved to El Paso a few years earlier and didn’t have many local relatives and friends. Powerful images of a solitary Basco crouching and weeping in front of Reckard’s makeshift memorial had spread on social media.

Social media giveth and social media taketh away.

Harrison Johnson, funeral director at Perches Funeral Homes, told NPRthat he quickly learned attendance would exceed its 250-person capacity. So he helped make arrangements to move the service to the larger La Paz Faith Memorial and Spiritual Center in El Paso. It was there that people from across the country descended on Friday to wrap Basco in a communal embrace. … People passed through the chapel, pausing to pay their respects, then moving along to make way for those waiting behind them. For hours, the line stretched outside for several blocks. “Since he opened it to the public, I think it was a way of the community to mourn the whole situation,” said Salvador Perches, owner of Perches Funeral Home, which handled Reckard’s burial for free.

Meanwhile a bomb has gone off at a wedding in Kabul.

Updating to add, after a conversation in the comments.