The weather continued wet and windy into Friday morning. My friend and I took our dogs, Nell and Barney, for an early morning walk and returned, all four of us, looking like drowned rats. But with no time to waste, we got changed and set off for the crematorium.
I’ve not attended a funeral for a long time and I would rather this one was not happening. But it was and there was no question of me not being there for my wonderful Auntie Pollie. People began to arrive - familiar but older faces. Cousins, siblings, nieces, in-laws, friends. Heather had driven down from Staffordshire after work the previous day. It was good to have her there. We mingled together, chatted, swapped news. It stopped raining. The wind dropped. The sun strained to pierce through the blanket of clouds. I thought, Auntie Pollie must have had a word with the chaps upstairs. No bad weather raining on her final parade, thank you very much.
The hearse arrived, bearing coffin and flowers, and the tears began.
Halfway through the service, the sun shone brightly through the roof lights and windows and into the crematorium. I was more caught up in the beauty of that moment than listening to the celebrant taking the service. That sunshine was Auntie Pollie saying she was all right. And to ‘cheer up, for goodness sake.’ The curtains closed on the coffin and Elvis Presley sang ‘The Wonder of You.’ She loved Elvis, did Auntie Pollie.
Afterwards some of us went to the pub across the road for refreshments and the sharing of memories.And some didn’t, choosing instead to go their own way, their goodbyes said and life going onwards. As often happens at these forced but polite events, family politics will make the decision of who stays and who leaves. It doesn’t matter really. Personal choice is what matters, no questions, no recriminations, no fuss. I took charge of Mum, because she wanted to go to the ‘do.’ She wanted to be there for the whole thing, to give the best send off to her little sister and best friend.
There was a lovely spread of food. Auntie Pollie, a great cook and cake maker, would have enjoyed it enormously. And so we sat, we chatted, we caught up with family we don’t see from one hatch, match or dispatch to the next. Lots of laughs. Lots of ‘do you remember when…’ moments. The exchanging of photos. The biting of tongues.
I told my cousin’s daughters lots of scurrilous stories about our childhood, like the time he smacked me (accidentally) in the face with a shovel, how we used to slide down the steep stairs of his home in sleeping bags, how we decided to try cooking potatoes in a biscuit tin in the bottom of a bonfire. That didn’t end well. Health and safety had yet to be born. Those were the days!
I was able to add to their memories of their beloved Nan, too, with my own memories of her before they were born. Building the library of knowledge that keeps people alive long after they are gone. You suddenly realise you are becoming a part of the growing oldest generation of a family, taking over the reins of keeping the family history alive. It’s a sobering thought. A reminder that tomorrow isn’t a certainty and living life to the full today is what matters.
Heather took her grandmother home before she set off back to Staffordshire. Andy and I went back to my cousin’s house where he lived next door to Auntie Pollie. I am joint executor with him for her estate and there was a bit of paperwork to look over - a box ticking exercise. My cousin dug up some of Auntie Pollie’s chrysanthemums for me to bring home and establish in my garden. These will give me much joy as they take hold, bloom and spread. He also tried to foist upon me her entire collection of garden ornaments, joking that I could hire a trailer for the car and take the greenhouse as well. I declined the whole collection but chose a pair of little stone hedgehogs for Heather and a couple of large hedgehog ornaments for myself, plus a cheerful garden gnome which looked at me as if to say, ‘Take me with you!’
My cousin opened Pollie’s front door. When I used to visit her, regularly when I still lived in Kent, I never knocked on that door. It was always the practice to open the door and shout, ‘Coooeeeee!!’ Auntie Pollie would invariably be sitting at the dining table, reading the paper. Or in her kitchen, cooking or washing up. Or working her beloved garden, the dining room doors wide open so visitors could walk straight through to find her. But now the house stood still, boxes of things being packed away, furniture in the process of being removed.
She wasn’t there. It was obvious her spirit was gone, no more need for the worldly shells of house or body to contain her essence. She’d made a good and clean escape, and it felt like a blessing. She was with loved ones gone before now. Returned to stardust. All was well.
I wandered around her garden whilst my cousin dug the chrysanthemums. I wandered into her kitchen and picked up an old and large bowl decorated with blue flowers. Take it, said my cousin. Take whatever you would like.
The bowl, the hedgehogs, the gnome and the chrysanthemums were enough. They won’t bring Auntie Pollie back. But they will help me to stay with her.
And then I suddenly needed my own home. Its comfort, its safety, its familiar habits and rhythms. The need to be surrounded by my own worldly goods, some of which, in years to come, might find their way to new homes, as memories of me. I said goodbye to my weary cousin and his family, and Andy and I left Kent. It was only ever going to be a flying visit. It had felt like a lifetime.
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