The last farewell

Goodbye Mum.

                 

I had, like most people, been dreading the funeral.
Everything had been prepared - plot chosen, flowers ordered, words written, music decided on, catering arranged (thank you Ysanne and Greta), people invited . . . but the actual reality of seeing the person in a coffin, or rather just the coffin and imagining the person - Mother - inside, is a very different thing to all the more straight forward and mostly unemotional organisational stuff.
The day arrived, bright and sunny, and from the moment I stepped onto the gravel drive of the woodland burial ground I knew it was going to be a joyous occasion - of course tinged with much sadness, but it was impossible to feel really gloomy surrounded by so much springtime beauty.
At this particular burial ground the service was conducted in a little thatched barn - led by (thankfully, the funeral director had suggested using 'a professional' to 'glue it all together') Rob, a particularly eloquent, thoughtful and humorous celebrant - and included part of Mum's choir singing Mozart, Mark playing Ravel, Delius and his own piece dedicated to her - The Periwinkle Waltz; my poem, and words from old friends.
After the service, we walked up to the grave - a plot I had chosen as it had views of distant hills and magnificent oak trees - Rob spoke, birds sang and it was all just perfect.
Oddly, I didn't sob - I normally howl at all funerals, even at people's I hardly know. It just all seemed rather remote to me. I think probably as I'd sort of said my goodbyes after her first stroke and she became a different person; then followed all the years as she went slowly downhill which was fairly distressing. The last few weeks - see a few posts back - were utterly awful as she struggled on in hospital. Maybe that's why it was a relief to know she was finally resting in a beautiful wild-flowered place that I would visit with many happy memories of her from earlier years.

                                                 

Up on Win Green Hill. A poem for Mum.

I wonder if within time’s fabric, certain memories still exist

Not just in my mind but in a sort of actual time

Do we still walk up on Win Green Hill? 

Where larks dive in a never-ending sky?

Or swim in Hampstead’s placid ponds

And clamber over rocks in Kimmeridge Bay, 

And after, drink tea in the ex-post-office café?

Do we brush through the ferns in Epping Forest?

Smell the summer roses in Regents Park 

And observe the waves from the Isle of Sark?

Watch Star Trek in black and white

Listen to our three records at Seymour Court

Pick raspberries at Greenhill Close

And stroke the nose of the neighbour’s horse

I think we do

The nocturnal house at London Zoo

The dark and mossy Highgate Woods

Its oak trees’ first springtime buds

The sand and sea at Canford Cliffs

Salty skin and tired limbs

The pause halfway up to observe

A brave scabious nodding flower

A darting lizard 

Old Harry Rocks

The Isle of Wight

The opal sea.

These treasured living memories.

cat-shaped space

Bronzino has been with us about fourteen years after someone said did we want a ginger tom kitten.
Good timing as our small runty cat, (Scrabs) had been stolen by someone passing by in a car, according to our neighbours of the time  - odd (and sad) as he really was runty.
We went to see Bronzino (who was living in a car at the time as the person had twenty or so cats in their house) and decided he would fit into our lives just fine.
And he did fit in; a perfect feline, really. Not too clingy, but happy to occupy a lap in front of the fire in winter. He caught mice, rats and rabbits, and, as if having listened to us, not too many birds.
He had his territory, would see off other cats, and would follow us (pack of assorted humans and dogs) down the road until his self-appointed patch ended and would yowl plaintively as if warning of dangers ahead to be encountered while visiting the bread shop, chemist or whatever.
I never had to take him to the vet and he was a good solid specimen of feline-ness until recent weeks when something happened internally and he shrunk into ultra old age causing Mark to finally take him to the for-mentioned place.
I will eradicate those final few weeks from my mind and think of him as the ginger king of the garden that he was.