Funeral

A very long day today started at 5am. Well, 4am actually thanks to my son who is in a different time zone to the rest of us mortals.

Russell, myself and two of my brothers left Bristol at 6am to head to Yorkshire for my Aunt Virginia’s funeral. We arrived in Skipton on time but the useful little map app wasn’t quite accurate in the destination so we were late to the Quaker Meeting House where the funeral ‘service’ was being held. I had never been to a Quaker funeral before. It was simple, moving and exactly right. If I was a Christian I would be a Quaker. Ginnie had chosen this, along with her wicker coffin and her final resting place in the woodland burial site on Tarn Moor, nearby to the town.

Tarn Moor

Along with all the family and many of her friends I discovered more things about my Aunt. What an amazing person she was; humble, modest, kind, generous and immensely practical.

Funerals are funny things. A time to say goodbye, a time to say hello to other family and friends, a time often to be squeezed into a busy week, a busy life and more often than not a time for a bad buffet and weak but very welcome coffee. Sometimes a time of regrets for things not said, visits not made often enough. I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to say goodbye to Ginnie before she died, and say some of the things that I should have said years ago, without the push of a terminal disease to make me spit it out. I am lucky enough to know that that mattered to her, as did all the expressions of love, admiration and friendship from so many unexpected, to her, sources. How do you miss someone who was not part of day to day? I don’t know, but I do miss her – she was, as my cousin Deb said, simply always there.

The journey back was uneventful. Snores from the back, maltesers in the front, disgusting cheese pasty from Gregs that tasted like sick, heavy lids as I tried to keep my eyes on the road, queues of traffic round Birmingham and home. 9pm feels like 2am so now I am going to sleep.