The Funeral

Your funeral was a small affair. No wake. Only thirty allowed. And live streamed. We did all the things that people do. Chose music. Wrote words to say about you. Turned up in black suits and dresses. You would have been impeccably turned out for your last journey, but we were not allowed to send a suit for you. You were still in your pyjamas. I suppose. I never saw you again, and I’m presuming it was you in that coffin. It was not permissible to visit the funeral home.

With the restrictions in force most of your friends and neighbours could not pay their respects. It mattered to them. They were of a generation where it counted. They would have filled the church. Had we been allowed to have the service there. The one you walked to most Sundays. When Mum died, half the village filled that church. Your entire service was at the crematorium.

Do you know what they did though, Dad, your villagers, your friends? On a bitterly cold, January day with snow on the ground and covid in the air, a large group of them, it must have been thirty or more. They stood on the little green where the war memorial is, in their hats and coats and masks. I was amazed to see them there as I drove behind the hearse. I cried to see so many, standing out for Bill.

It is so wrong to wear a mask to a funeral. It’s wrong to not be able to sit together. No comfort. No togetherness. Being denied the wake was the coldest thing. That’s the time to talk and remember. To cry, to share.

After the funeral, me and D and L, we returned to the place that should have held your wake. To your house, empty of you.