Aaaand the funeral

Well, that was unpleasant

So we have a morning spent playing the black tie game (who has a black tie? What do you mean you don’t have a black tie, who can we borrow a black tie off?! Which ends up with me pointing out that I have a dozen black ties if people would just tell me they needed them) and Beloved stealing one of my suits (Beloved needs his own suit. I was measuring him for a suit but every time I do we get distracted)

The funeral begins with the long procession of public grief. The big big cars drive up, one with the box inside…

…aside, I hate coffins. I really hate coffins even more than I hate corpses. You see the pretty box covered in lilies and you know that it contains the shell of a loved one. I find it creepy, morbid and really sad especially as it is toted around and placed centre stage on a literal pedestal so you can all stare at the empty shell. Ugh ugh ugh…

…and another big car that carried me, dad, mum and my brother along behind the hearse. And then we did the freaking 75 minute long grief tour. You know the one, where you drive behind the coffin (so that’s THERE in front of you ALL the damn time) slowly through the town to the crematorium. I don’t know if it’s a local or national thing but there is always a vast respect for a funeral procession – even on dual carriage ways people wouldn’t over take us. And of course all pedestrians stop whatever they’re doing to stop, bow heads and give respect to the dead and Most Sad of Mourners. Which is nice but discomforts me when I am one of the Most Sad – and I’m not even sure why.

Anyway, this goes on for an eternity (75 minutes, I kid you not) which is spent in looong silence with odd bouts of crippling small talk because you don’t want to say anything that is too light (because that would be disrespectful) but nor do you want to talk about the deceased because you could fray someone’s very careful control and all the time the box is right there in front yelling “STARE AT ME! There’s a corpse inside!”

And then we arrived, meaning the MOST fun part of the day had ended.

At this point, reunited with Beloved I glue myself to him and find we’ve been moved from the original chapel because it was too small. Beloved looks kind of shell shocked and a cousin whispers hastily to me “Someone put out a three-line whip.” Because the place is FULL. It’s also definitely time to resolve the whole “should I shouldn’t I” pill drama and firmly tick the “hell yes I should.”

I should have expected it. Before her descent into Alzheimers, Nana was a major fixture of the family. Of course the whole clan was going to turn out. And it was February and no-one’s got a good reason to party in February.

So Beloved sits behind me during the actual ceremony because the Most Sad of Mourners must all sit at the front so we can be stared at (but at least I secured him directly behind me so he could whisper about “Angels in bling” when the priest read some Luke verse about “Resplendent Apparel”).

And the ceremony begins and I start to tune out as much as I can. It was not only a religious ceremony, it was an aggressively religious ceremony, Jesus was everywhere. He couldn’t even mention things like “We will now remember {Nana}” nope, we got to remember her through Jesus. I knew there’d have to be some religion because Nana was Christian in a “god is watching me and judging me and hating everything I do, I’m so afraid” kind of way, but none of the Most Sad of Mourners were.

And if it were more High Church he’d have been speaking Latin and waving a censer of incense around. Even my brother said to me “if he gets out a cup and wafers I am out of here.” And what’s with the praying with your arms outstretched to the side and upwards, like you’re holding a giant beachball over your head?

And then there’s the eulogy. Oh, how I hate eulogies. Someone who never ever met the deceased is now going to talk about them to a room full of people who knew them, loved them, respected them, were friends and family to them. It’s like a life autopsy. We could have had a pathologist stand up and talk about the state of her liver – it would be that personal and meaningful. At least he wouldn’t have got stuff wrong. And the sanitisation “And she lived life to the fullest” no she didn’t, she lived life constantly afraid of what other people would think of her, constantly conforming and anxious. “And her husband doted on her every whim” no, everyone did what she wanted because she was stubborn and demanding and would have everything her way. I know you’re not going to speak ill of the dead – but why lie to all the people who knew about her? Because to me that says “she was a nasty piece of work so let’s talk about some completely fictional person instead.”

Anyway, just a second before I was about to stand up and ask for a real vicar rather than this poor parody, the interminable ceremony, terminated. We all stood and waited to some generically depressing music until some flunky indicated that the Most Sad of Mourners could leave (first of course, so we can be paraded past everyone else who can’t leave until we’ve gone)

We have the line outside where the oodles of mourners all pay their respect to the Most Sad of Mourners and we hover trying to help dad in case of imminent collapse since we’re all now ground zero of the grief explosion.

And then it’s back to the echoing hall that has been rapidly moved because of the sheer number of family for the traditional eating, drinking and gossiping with hundreds of family including so many I have been avoiding and refusing to answer calls from… yeah.

It was of the awful. I had to move away from mum, dad and my brother in case various issues intrude on the Most Sad of Mourners zone (keep dashing back for essential dad propping up, less as he got more and more drunk as the evening progressed)

And, yeah it was awful. They were awful. The usual suspects were awful. The night was awful. It was a whole lot of awful.

And I got through it without too much damage. I don’t know if it was the pill, an epiphany or just too much damn emotional crap, but my brain looked at the usual “be hurt and wounded and have a triggered panic attack reaction in the toilets while a migraine beats away” response and said “nah, we’re not going to do that. Let’s have some rage and beat people to death with metal platters!”

So while there was a very very very very very very very very good chance I’d yell “fuck you and the horse you road in on” and try to strangle people with their own tie, there wasn’t much chance of me running our the room weeping either. My temper was in danger of breaking, not me.

Which, hmm is progress I guess? Feels like progress. I’m going to call it progress, even if I did go home and break things

Of course, it does look like my family is now getting the same reaction that stranger/acquaintance ‘phobes get, which makes me wonder if the family ties are now ashes in my mind, but I’m not sure that matters too much either.

But yeah – a long long long day. A painful day and generally an awful day, but funerals are never really fun times are they?

At least the funeral served it’s purpose for Dad. He finally went from the “I’m going to be strong for everyone and it was a relief for everyone and she’s at peace” to “my mother is dead.” and started to fall apart. Which he’s been needing to do for the last week. He managed to get drunk and relax in the supportive arms of the vast vast vast family. The family itself managed to come together in a way we haven’t seen for a very long time and I think that helped dad to see – that many people, that many relatives all there to pay respects.