funeral – Kathleen Jowitt

A family of swan and cygnets on a small spit in a river in an urban environment — Meanwhile, across the water from the memorial gathering…

“I hope the funeral goes well,” several people said to me, and many of them added, “or as well as these things can go.”

I very much appreciated the sentiment behind that wish. And I knew exactly what they meant.

And yet. And yet it didn’t quite sit right with me, as if there was somehow an implication that because a funeral is necessarily a sad event, there would be things that would not go well. That things would go wrong, even. That because it wasn’t a joyous occasion it must necessarily be somehow slipshod, drab. That difficult and sloppy sit near each other on the same axis.

I don’t believe for a moment that anyone who used that phrase to me meant to imply any of that, of course I don’t. But this kept worrying away at me until I prodded it back.

I’ve been involved in planning all sorts of events – in my professional life, in my voluntary roles, and in my personal life. Courses, parties, retreats, church services, training days, conferences, seminars, weddings.

And yes, funerals.

I can make an event go really well. My mother’s funeral? You bet I was going to do everything I could to make that one go as well as it possibly could.

It went really well – yes, as well as it could. But better than that. Both parts – the “she didn’t want a fuss” church service and crematorium committal, and the “but more people want to pay their respects than will fit in the church” arts centre gathering the next day.

And it was really, really hard. I was very glad, in retrospect, that I didn’t put myself forward to do any reading or give any tribute at the church service, because that gave me space to fall apart completely. I’d done the work of remembering which hymn my mother wanted (yes, I found myself saying to several people afterwards, she specifically wanted the verse about the worms) and guessing which other one she might have liked, of suggesting the readings, of burrowing in the boxes of CDs in the garage to find the Bruckner Te Deum, of liasing with my brothers and the minister and my aunt, of typesetting the order of service and getting it printed. I’d done all that, and now all I had to do was to turn up. The minister carried it, and the liturgy, and my brilliant family who will absolutely sing in four-part harmony if you give them the sheet music.

The next day I was the one at the front of the room, explaining what was going to happen, introducing the musicians, finding a graceful way to bring in someone who’d arrived late but still wanted to say something. Holding the space. I remember thinking at one point that I had my work head on, because that’s what I do.

And that was hard, too. I will probably never be able to listen to Here comes the sun again, maybe never sing Auld Lang Syne.

Some things went wrong, of course. I’d have liked to have got to the church earlier and had some time on my own (as opposed to having a flaming row over a sandwich and having to spend far longer than necessary putting my make-up on and calming down). I’d have liked to have the Brahms run all the way to the end of the track. And I think the funeral directors had some trouble with the hearse and the very tight little lane, but that wasn’t my responsibility. It wasn’t perfect. But on the whole, it went very well indeed.

But it was hard because it went well. It was hard because it did what it needed to do. It was hard because there’s no way that catharsis is going to be easy. It was hard because it said what it needed to say: This person is gone, and we loved her. We loved her, and this is the last thing we can do for her.

And because it was the last thing we could do for her, we did it as well as we could.

Thank you, friends. It did indeed go as well as these things can go.

A shallow flood blocks a path that's blocked again by a five bar gate

This week I’ve been transferring photos from my phone onto an external drive. I’ve had this phone for nearly five years, and there are a lot of photos on there. Fewer than there were on Monday, though.

As luck would have it, I hit January 2022 just as some online friends were discussing preferences for funeral music. My father died on 8 January 2022, and the pictures from that month are a jumble of memories and plans – beloved objects, photos of photos, and important documents – some taken by me, some shared by family members and friends.

Among those important documents was a two page note in my aunt’s handwriting, a summary of a conversation she and Pa had had during a COVID lockdown. On the first page were the details of the solicitors and the insurance. On the second, a very detailed list of funeral preferences. What. Where. Who should speak. Which hymns, including specific tune in one case and hymn number in another. Music for entrance. Music for exit.

It was immensely helpful. I ended up drafting most of the service, and this document gave me a starting point and an authority; it curtailed, if it didn’t quite avoid, a lot of disagreements; it provided some interesting challenges. We didn’t follow it exactly; we also found a previous version (another photo to pop up in the January 2022 folder) and added some bits from that. But we definitely followed it in spirit.

I have made one of these myself, but it was a good decade ago and I think it’s got lost, anyway. So I’m planning to do a new version this year. I’m not planning on dying any time soon, but you never know.

Morbid? Perhaps. Self-centred? Undoubtedly, but far more helpful than being self-effacing. Even if one doesn’t want a big fuss, one’s executors aren’t necessarily going to know what “not a big fuss” looks like, and, while good funeral directors, and, I’m sure, celebrants from all traditions, will have helpful suggestions, they’re going to be at least somewhat generic, at which point you’ve just moved the question on from “what would they have wanted?” to “would they really have wanted that?” And that’s not an easy question when you’re grieving. A plain statement of preferences in black and white can be one last, immensely helpful and comforting, gift. I’d recommend everybody does one, if they can face it, and saves their family and friends a lot of grief, in the informal sense – and perhaps in the formal sense, too.