Today I am watching little knots of black-clad figures walk past by window. They are on their way to a funeral at the neighbouring church which I attend. It is the funeral of my elderly friend, Dilys who was one of the grand old characters of our street and whose memories of WWII I recorded for our Sharing Stories project. She died peacefully in her own bed in the house where she was raised, an ambition she had made clear in the past.
In any other year, I would be attending in person, but due to
Covid precautions, I’m at home, participating online.
It is a way of discovering the aspects of a funeral that
cannot be reproduced online.
Usually at the funeral of an elderly friend, one meets their
children and grandchildren. I could see
some of them on video but didn’t get a chance to press a hand and say how much
I had admired their matriarchal grandmother.
I also missed that communal experience of grief that finds
you swallowing back tears along with everybody else, even though you know the
departed had reached the end of a long life well-lived and has gone on finally
to Heaven to meet their lifelong hero, Jesus.
On the other hand, I could hear loud and clear the eulogies,
the outline of a full life, embellished with jewel-like anecdotes.
And when they placed the coffin with its vivid flowers in
the hearse just outside our house, I stood at the window and saluted.
Farewell, Dilys.
Thank you Clare…lovely words, thank you. Yes, it was a different kind of funeral and although few could attend in person, the live streaming did allow many more to participate who couldn’t have made it in normal times. (Wouldn’t my mother have found it so amusing and amazing that her funeral could be digitally shared around the world?!). She would also have been both delighted by the outpouring of love and goodwill that was apparent at the funeral and the journey down CHR, and annoyed that people had made such a fuss of her. It’s lucky she didn’t have too much of a say in that bit! Of course we would also have been delighted to meet her many well-wishers in person but perhaps that can happen another day.
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