Posted by Tania Kindersley.
The sun goes on shining. I did a good old big fat cry last night, and the pain has gone from my shoulders. There is instead a low pressure on my head, as if someone is pressing on it.
I have quite a lot of irrational thoughts. Suddenly, today, I thought: why does there have to be all this bloody funeral business? I know humans need ceremony and ritual. I know the family must gather. I know it is proper and right. It is the way of things. It must be done. But suddenly, suddenly, I think: why do I have to go and stand in a church and see him in a box? What’s that about? Why must there be the putting in the ground, in the old earth? Why can’t I just drive down to Glenn Muick and say goodbye now, consign what is left of the spirit and the life to the mountains and the loch? Why do I have to put on my jewel and find a suitable black dress and make sure I remember the waterproof mascara?
In the illogical part of my head, I think of all this mummery and say: stupid, stupid, stupid.
Almost certainly by tomorrow I shall think the diametrical opposite. Perhaps that is a thing too, like the ache in the shoulder blades. Perhaps there will be people out there nodding their heads, saying, quietly, oh yes, I remember that day.
Pictures, which are mostly of the green things:
Hill:
I have recently found funerals to be a great comfort, against all expectations, and often filled with funny stories and laughter and a lot of love. May it be so for you.
ReplyDeleteThinking of you tomorrow. Jude x
ReplyDeleteI have been fortunate enough, so far, not to need to deal with any crashingly difficult funerals; but those I have seen, and my husband's work (as a C of E rector, with all the attendant baggage, opportunity and presuppositions) mean that I totally agree with LillyAnne. The best are as those who remain wish them to be; they are celebrations and punctuation; there is love and laughter; and there is absolutely no need to wear black. A schoolfriend's mother decreed forcefully that black was not to be worn at her funeral. I wore daffodil-yellow.
ReplyDeleteKeep your beautiful hills and canines and trees as your background, and your love for your father in the foreground.
"The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
that seemed hard frozen; may it happen for you."
I remember this part so vividly. Four years since Mum, Fifteen since Dad. I wish I could give you a hug or do something practical to help, like make a pie and send it along for you.
ReplyDeleteStill thinking of you everyday.
Anne.x
Tania - your sadness almost shines through in the eyes of the dogs...soulfully sad. I am sure by the time it's over you will pleased/relieved but I agree, funerals are a strange oddity. As that reading often read at funeral says - he's just in another room. Will be thinking of you...Lou x
ReplyDeleteI remember thinking exactly the same about my father's memorial-- in his case it was only a memorial. My mother wanted me to see the body and I refused; I couldn't even see or touch his ashes when we scattered them on Iona. But the memorial, it turned out, was lovely. I cried through it shamelessly and wrackingly, partly because of the welling-up of feeling upon seeing so many people turn out who loved my father. To hear him tell it he went through life largely under the radar and ignored, and it was such a (pleasant) shock to see graphically that it wasn't true and that others saw in him what I had seen. I hope the same thing happens to you, and you hear new stories from new perspectives that increase your sense of how wonderful your father was. Thinking of you.
ReplyDeleteDear Tania,
ReplyDeleteI am so very sorry for your loss. I do hope that you will be comforted by the love of your friends and family and that the funeral goes as well as it can.
Lucy
Dear Tania, apart from the wooden box bit which is bloody awful at first, I agree with Lillyanne, I have more recently found funerals a comfort. It's lovely to be amongst wonderful friends and family, as I know you will be. Thinking of you xx
ReplyDelete