Funerals are so much better than weddings
This opinion of mine will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. Weddings drive me nuts for many good and several terrible reasons, but funerals are a dreadful, pure-as-crystal, pleasure. They are partly a pleasure because, unlike funerals, you're allowed to feel terrible, be devastated, cry, drink, come as you are - including in flat shoes and with no make up. There is rarely a seating plan so you're not stuck with ghastly people you've known all your life or horrendous people you don't know at all. You can also be comfortably single at a funeral - people bring their partners to weddings. Quite frankly, a domestic with your soon-to-be-ex-wife is mostly preferable to having to talk to the guy you worked with seven years ago and who bored you to literal tears back then, and who has made no progress in the conversational stakes since then. But often people come alone to a funeral and so, at a funeral, I'm slightly less of a freak than at a wedding, being perennially single as I am.
And people go to funerals because they want to. Yes, they also go because they ought, and sometimes because they are central to the mourners, but what mostly takes us there is a desire to be with the bereaved, to recognize the disappearance of someone who's meant something to us, or often, both. Weddings, not so much. Or maybe that's just me, because weddings are so grim for me, but I often find myself huddled in one corner or another with the usual wedding detritus: guests working out when it will become decorous to leave. You know what I mean, surely you've been there... haven't you? If you haven't you are a much better person than I, just in case you were wondering. Or maybe you normally find yourself enjoying the evening with your partner, reminiscing about your wedding or looking forward to yours. I guess I never imagined one for me because Dad would not be there. And then I hit the age - probably ten or so - when realized how much I despised the re-hashing of the passage of the ownership of a woman from her father to her husband as funpartytime.... but that really is a whole other blog, or series of blogs, or lifetime of evenings in the pub.
But, point is, I went to a funeral a few weeks ago. As ever, I wanted to write some other things about Dad in this blog. I've been struggling to write anything at all of late, let alone things about him and the accident that, ultimately, killed him. I am currently rehashing and rehashing the fact of it being early June as I write, 40 years ago Dad was in hospital, dying. You might say he was fighting for his life, people say all kinds of things, but this is the thick of the three weeks which saw endless medical professionals work to save him and him slipping off in spite of it all.
Writing this blog is extraordinarily hard, far harder than anything else I've tried to write, including the show about my own sister's murder for crying out loud... yes... harder than that. This time I wanted to tell you who Dad was, why I am so obsessed and caught in the memory and reality of his death, but this funeral has to come first. Maybe if I write I'll find out why.
But, listen, the funeral I went to a few weeks ago, I want to tell you about that. I had expected to hear of this death for a while, so the news was not a surprise, but still it was a shock. A dear school friend who I hardly ever see anymore contacted me to say her mother was dead and she told me when the funeral was. I happened not to be engaged by anyone to take their money for my labour that day, and I made plans to get there.
The last time I was with my friend CJ it had been at the wedding of our dear friend K; the time before that had been at the funeral of CJ's father. Weddings are swiftly turning to funerals for us. Everyone (except me) is married and now our parents are shuffling off, sometimes easily but often in a lengthy process of gentle or violent vanishing which leaves everyone astonished and drained.
As I arrive at the very beautiful rural Norfolk church on the very beautiful rural Norfolk day, there was CJ, standing in the porch, looking - like me - every one of her years and, at the same time, like the tiniest lost child I could imagine. We embrace and then she reaches for her husband's hand, and this almost certainly involuntary action itself makes me want to cry. They certainly seem to have a wonderful, enduring relationship, but no end of holding his hand will bring back her dear mother.
I am, I think, astonished, and maybe she is too, astonished to be here, more than 30 years into our friendship, on a day we knew would arrive but we had no idea it wouldn't be raining, that we'd still be in contact, that I'd hire a car to drive up and back on the day. We didn't know how we'd feel, exactly the depths of the despair and bereavement under which CJ would be bearing up pretty damn well.
She tells me that K is already in the church and I go in and find her. And here we are brought together by S, who has died. She always was enormous fun, and she always made me so welcome in her home, when we were teenagers, and on into our twenties as we gradually flew the nests we had all occupied in the middle of nowhere, where we grew up. Later there will be tea and sandwiches and I'll recall endless teas and drinks and laughs in that childhood home where S was as irreverent as you like.
The service is utterly about the person who is gone, which is great and surprising, funerals so often miss the spirit of the dear departed. The trick was that S had written it very clear instructions herself, the most comprehensive version of a funeral service written by the absent host the vicar has ever seen, he says. And K and I stroke each other and hold hands and each dissolve into tears at our own particular moments, and giggles at other points, in perfect harmony. It's not until way into it all that K confesses she has no tissues (I thought she was choosing to sniff), and I fish an old napkin out of my enormo-handbag. This action makes me feel like the mother I am not and never will be, the mother I probably idly thought I would be one when the three of us met at 13.
Any given death is easily about all the other deaths which have touched you and there is some catharsis in this ceremony for me. It is about S, it is about a lost past, it is about the state of my friendships with these two wonderful women whom I hardly ever see any more, it's about my dead sister (who traveled with my brother, CJ and me in Africa), it's about all the other dead, it's about my concern for C and her nearest and dearest, and it's about Dad. Like everything else, but more so - it's always about Dad.
When I reflect on why it's about Dad and how much it's about Dad, and how everything is about Dad on my three-and-a-half hour journey back to central London to go to Chess, the musical, I feel almost helpless.... I feel helpless. And sad. And furious... amongst other things. But I am delighted to discover that I don't feel jealous. In fact, drum-roll, I would like to announce that I don't feel jealous. You may be thinking that, given the private, particular, exquisite hell CJ is experiencing, I would be a wild one to be jealous. And of course I'd not be jealous of the creeping progress which her unbelievable loss will impose on her, one out-of-nowhere laugh forward, two weeping steps back.
I am beyond relieved to discover that I am not jealous that my friend got to attend her mother's funeral (and her father's, a few years ago now). Unless my mother has some poor luck I'll be at hers, so there's that to look forward to, and I've already organized and been a keynote speaker at my sister's unfashionably early funeral - CJ has not had that pleasure. But until recently I found I was horribly jealous of all kinds of things involving my dad, or rather not involving my dad. Grown men with small girls, a chap carrying his daughter's stuff, women walking up the aisle to be handed from their previous owner to the new one.
I have long ago forgiven my mother for her decision not to take me to Dad's funeral. There was a period of time when I thought about it a lot and a period of time when we talked about it, she explained herself, I expressed my anger and desolation and many many other nouns, some with pretty forceful adjectives attached. And, through talk and honesty and eviscerating pain we moved past that point and I do believe I forgave her. She's a pretty inspiring example of how to be open about trouble and keep at it until it changes its nature.
Writing this blog, 40 years on, shows how bad I am at moving on. I am epicly bad, as many of my friends and erstwhile friends will tell you, or maybe, I imagine, scream at you before storming off. But I have managed to move on from something.
I have moved on from my own alienation and despair at not attending Dad's funeral, and I have done that to such an extent that on the day S returned, officially, to her maker (for she was a committed Christian) I was able to think of her, and of her late husband, of K as she held my hand, of S's grandchildren, of her son and of her inestimable daughter who has meant the world to me for so long. I am able not to think of myself and my dad the whole time.
As I hurtle down the motorway to make it to a musical my sister loved, I am able to confirm that, you know, there's hope for us all: if I can do this you can too. Or rather, I presume you've already moved on, dear reader, and this is rather a little chink of light to indicate that I am actually somewhat capable of what most people do so naturally. And because I've moved on from this maybe I'll move on from something else sometime. Maybe.
And people go to funerals because they want to. Yes, they also go because they ought, and sometimes because they are central to the mourners, but what mostly takes us there is a desire to be with the bereaved, to recognize the disappearance of someone who's meant something to us, or often, both. Weddings, not so much. Or maybe that's just me, because weddings are so grim for me, but I often find myself huddled in one corner or another with the usual wedding detritus: guests working out when it will become decorous to leave. You know what I mean, surely you've been there... haven't you? If you haven't you are a much better person than I, just in case you were wondering. Or maybe you normally find yourself enjoying the evening with your partner, reminiscing about your wedding or looking forward to yours. I guess I never imagined one for me because Dad would not be there. And then I hit the age - probably ten or so - when realized how much I despised the re-hashing of the passage of the ownership of a woman from her father to her husband as funpartytime.... but that really is a whole other blog, or series of blogs, or lifetime of evenings in the pub.
But, point is, I went to a funeral a few weeks ago. As ever, I wanted to write some other things about Dad in this blog. I've been struggling to write anything at all of late, let alone things about him and the accident that, ultimately, killed him. I am currently rehashing and rehashing the fact of it being early June as I write, 40 years ago Dad was in hospital, dying. You might say he was fighting for his life, people say all kinds of things, but this is the thick of the three weeks which saw endless medical professionals work to save him and him slipping off in spite of it all.
Writing this blog is extraordinarily hard, far harder than anything else I've tried to write, including the show about my own sister's murder for crying out loud... yes... harder than that. This time I wanted to tell you who Dad was, why I am so obsessed and caught in the memory and reality of his death, but this funeral has to come first. Maybe if I write I'll find out why.
But, listen, the funeral I went to a few weeks ago, I want to tell you about that. I had expected to hear of this death for a while, so the news was not a surprise, but still it was a shock. A dear school friend who I hardly ever see anymore contacted me to say her mother was dead and she told me when the funeral was. I happened not to be engaged by anyone to take their money for my labour that day, and I made plans to get there.
The last time I was with my friend CJ it had been at the wedding of our dear friend K; the time before that had been at the funeral of CJ's father. Weddings are swiftly turning to funerals for us. Everyone (except me) is married and now our parents are shuffling off, sometimes easily but often in a lengthy process of gentle or violent vanishing which leaves everyone astonished and drained.
As I arrive at the very beautiful rural Norfolk church on the very beautiful rural Norfolk day, there was CJ, standing in the porch, looking - like me - every one of her years and, at the same time, like the tiniest lost child I could imagine. We embrace and then she reaches for her husband's hand, and this almost certainly involuntary action itself makes me want to cry. They certainly seem to have a wonderful, enduring relationship, but no end of holding his hand will bring back her dear mother.
I am, I think, astonished, and maybe she is too, astonished to be here, more than 30 years into our friendship, on a day we knew would arrive but we had no idea it wouldn't be raining, that we'd still be in contact, that I'd hire a car to drive up and back on the day. We didn't know how we'd feel, exactly the depths of the despair and bereavement under which CJ would be bearing up pretty damn well.
She tells me that K is already in the church and I go in and find her. And here we are brought together by S, who has died. She always was enormous fun, and she always made me so welcome in her home, when we were teenagers, and on into our twenties as we gradually flew the nests we had all occupied in the middle of nowhere, where we grew up. Later there will be tea and sandwiches and I'll recall endless teas and drinks and laughs in that childhood home where S was as irreverent as you like.
The service is utterly about the person who is gone, which is great and surprising, funerals so often miss the spirit of the dear departed. The trick was that S had written it very clear instructions herself, the most comprehensive version of a funeral service written by the absent host the vicar has ever seen, he says. And K and I stroke each other and hold hands and each dissolve into tears at our own particular moments, and giggles at other points, in perfect harmony. It's not until way into it all that K confesses she has no tissues (I thought she was choosing to sniff), and I fish an old napkin out of my enormo-handbag. This action makes me feel like the mother I am not and never will be, the mother I probably idly thought I would be one when the three of us met at 13.
Any given death is easily about all the other deaths which have touched you and there is some catharsis in this ceremony for me. It is about S, it is about a lost past, it is about the state of my friendships with these two wonderful women whom I hardly ever see any more, it's about my dead sister (who traveled with my brother, CJ and me in Africa), it's about all the other dead, it's about my concern for C and her nearest and dearest, and it's about Dad. Like everything else, but more so - it's always about Dad.
When I reflect on why it's about Dad and how much it's about Dad, and how everything is about Dad on my three-and-a-half hour journey back to central London to go to Chess, the musical, I feel almost helpless.... I feel helpless. And sad. And furious... amongst other things. But I am delighted to discover that I don't feel jealous. In fact, drum-roll, I would like to announce that I don't feel jealous. You may be thinking that, given the private, particular, exquisite hell CJ is experiencing, I would be a wild one to be jealous. And of course I'd not be jealous of the creeping progress which her unbelievable loss will impose on her, one out-of-nowhere laugh forward, two weeping steps back.
I am beyond relieved to discover that I am not jealous that my friend got to attend her mother's funeral (and her father's, a few years ago now). Unless my mother has some poor luck I'll be at hers, so there's that to look forward to, and I've already organized and been a keynote speaker at my sister's unfashionably early funeral - CJ has not had that pleasure. But until recently I found I was horribly jealous of all kinds of things involving my dad, or rather not involving my dad. Grown men with small girls, a chap carrying his daughter's stuff, women walking up the aisle to be handed from their previous owner to the new one.
I have long ago forgiven my mother for her decision not to take me to Dad's funeral. There was a period of time when I thought about it a lot and a period of time when we talked about it, she explained herself, I expressed my anger and desolation and many many other nouns, some with pretty forceful adjectives attached. And, through talk and honesty and eviscerating pain we moved past that point and I do believe I forgave her. She's a pretty inspiring example of how to be open about trouble and keep at it until it changes its nature.
Writing this blog, 40 years on, shows how bad I am at moving on. I am epicly bad, as many of my friends and erstwhile friends will tell you, or maybe, I imagine, scream at you before storming off. But I have managed to move on from something.
I have moved on from my own alienation and despair at not attending Dad's funeral, and I have done that to such an extent that on the day S returned, officially, to her maker (for she was a committed Christian) I was able to think of her, and of her late husband, of K as she held my hand, of S's grandchildren, of her son and of her inestimable daughter who has meant the world to me for so long. I am able not to think of myself and my dad the whole time.
As I hurtle down the motorway to make it to a musical my sister loved, I am able to confirm that, you know, there's hope for us all: if I can do this you can too. Or rather, I presume you've already moved on, dear reader, and this is rather a little chink of light to indicate that I am actually somewhat capable of what most people do so naturally. And because I've moved on from this maybe I'll move on from something else sometime. Maybe.
Boom. :)
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