Grief, death and funerals

Was supposed to be meeting a friend for ice cream this morning but she was inundated with work and life so we've postponed it until next week. So what was I to do with my unexpectedly free morning?

I mentioned that my cousin/godmother had died. It's her funeral a week tomorrow - assuming today is Thursday which I think it is. When I was speaking to her daughter I said if she wanted me to read anything I'd be happy to.

She was delighted and gave me free rein; "A memory, a poem, a scripture, anything you like," she said.

I'd sort of thought I'd be given a scripture to read but instead I have to think. So that's what I'm doing this morning. I realise I have spoken at quite a few funerals. Being a cold-hearted unemotional sort of person comes in useful at times like this.

I distracted the friend I was supposed to be meeting telling her what I was doing and she pointed me in the direction of several poems but none were quite right so I've written part-memory, part-prayer. A first draft anyway.

One poem that is often read at funerals apparently is Death is Nothing At All by Henry Holland-Scott, a canon at St. Paul's in the late nineteenth, early twentieth centuries. There are some wonderful lines in it  but I don't think the first verse is very helpful for those who are grieving.

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.

While I understand the theological truth of it if I'd lost someone very close and I heard those words I'd stop listening to the rest. Death to those left behind isn't nothing; it does count. Something big has happened. Which is a shame because later verses are lovely.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

* * * * *

Now about ten minutes ago I thought of something and decided to search my blog for it - yes, you've guessed it, I got distracted and now can't remember what it it was exactly I was looking for. I searched for 'funeral' and was amazed at all the funeral posts. It seems I have a habit of getting lost or going at the wrong time to funerals. I wasn't aware of that tendency but my blog never lies. (Well, almost never.)

One post from 2013 began like this:

I've been to a funeral today. It was nobody I knew so there was none of the possible emotion and I could enjoy the good bits. (Lest you think I'm a serial funeral stalker let me assure you I'm not.) And, fair play, as they say in Wales, it was a lovely do.

Still don't know whose funeral that could have been but I went on to say this, which still stands today:

It was quite a solemn service though. Afterwards I said to Husband, 'I don't want a funeral procession; I want a funeral gallop.'

He looked at me and sighed in the 'well, that's a silly idea' way that he frequently uses with me.

'Okay,' I said, 'well, at least I want people to laugh at my funeral.'

'Have you thought that people may not feel like laughing at your funeral?'

'Rubbish! When you start thinking about all the stupid things I've done you won't be able to stop laughing.'

In fact everyone will probably be laughing so much they'll forget to push the button to burn me and I'll be left lying there until the cleaning lady comes in the evening and gets a fright.

That of course raises the question: to bury or burn? I think I m pretty much settled on burning as waking up to find ,myself under a ton of earth would just make me panic, whereas waking up in flames, well, it would soon be over. And there's a possibility people would hear my screams. Or then again, maybe not, as I don't have a very loud voice.

And now this post has gone on a lot longer than I anticipated on starting but here is a poem I do like.