An understandably subdued
atmosphere hung over my brother and sister-in-law’s house this morning as we
breakfasted and prepared for the funeral. My mum had asked if I’d be a
pallbearer, something I was happy to agree to, but it suddenly made me worry
about my choice of shirt. While opting for the traditional black suit and black
tie, I had also gone with a black shirt and was concerned that I’d stick out
among everyone else’s white shirts. I needn’t have worried, as the ‘black and
white’ convention hadn’t been adhered to by anyone. I prefer it that way to be honest;
surely the notion of funeral dress has been confined to history by now? As long
as people are respectfully smart then it shouldn’t matter.
We all met up at what I still
and will probably always call my nana and granddad’s house. Not only did it
seem strange being there without my nana, it seemed strange to have so many
people crammed inside their little bungalow. There were certainly far more
people than is comfortably possible to accommodate in the little front room. I
spotted a photograph of my grandparents on the wall that was taken on my
granddad’s 60th birthday party; my granddad is standing at the table
cutting his cake wearing a badge from a card intended for a six year old that
has had the zero added on for comic effect. Nana is next to him and I am
sitting at the table. The picture was taken when we lived in Marske and
although I can’t put an exact year on it I know that we left Marske for Norfolk
in early 1985 so I must have been younger than eight. This was the party that
we had upstairs at a pub called The Ship and I remember that due to either
tiredness or clumsiness, I fell down a flight of stairs. For years after that
my nana would remind me of the time I fell down the stairs because I was drunk
on Coca-Cola. Funny little memories like that have been popping up since she
died, the memory can be an odd thing at times but at the same time it is
wonderfully giving.
Obviously these were shitty
circumstances to have a family reunion under, but at the same time it was nice
to meet up with members of my mum’s side of the family that I had lost touch
with for whatever reason, mainly through not trying hard enough I suppose. All
I could think was how nice it would be to have a family photo, but I don’t
suppose etiquette allows such behavior. Another thought that cropped up (and I
doubt I was the only person who thought this) was how nana would hate the fact
that not one of us had taken their shoes off.
I’ve never been a pallbearer
before and wondered if I should have said that I would do it. I was doing it
with my brother Jack, my brother-in-law Dominic, my brother-in-law Andy, my
cousin Robin, and my stepdad Eric. If we were all six to stand in a line it
would look like an extended version of the class sketch from The Frost Report, such is the varying height differences
between us. We managed though, our basic training being to get the coffin out
of the car and not drop it. Death occurs to you in strange ways, and while we
were carrying the coffin in it didn’t hit me that it was my nana in there.
Although I’m an atheist and
the service was religious, I joined in with the singing of the two hymns that
were chosen but didn’t recite The Lord’s Prayer. I can’t go along with the idea
of heaven but it was a nice service and the vicar managed to slip out of the
solemnity of his role when reading about how my grandparents met, describing
how my granddad had thought my nana ‘a bit of alright’. My Uncle John and my mother both spoke, John
gave a beautiful tribute to his mother and my mum told a childhood anecdote to
illustrate how nana never wanted to hurt a person’s feelings. With that, to the
tune of ‘In The Mood’ by Glen Miller, it was all over.
