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.
