Under greying, cheerless skies, with an all-enveloping drizzle of tears slowly falling from the massed clouds, there are better places to start the week than the local crematorium. Driving down the long, tree-lined driveway, descending slowly and respectfully to meet fellow mourners, gathered huddled against the elements, grey moods on a grey day. Fields of massed headstones, a testament to generations passed on to their final destinations, surround almost intrusively, as if observing us. Here we are again, black ties dusted off, grim looks shared, time to say goodbye…again.
As workmen stroll through the wooded grounds with their space age leaf-blowers blasting the fallen debris to oblivion – or at least a final resting place under the same trees they fell from – we were here to say goodbye to dear old Olga, some thirteen years since we bid the same fond farewell to her late husband, Ken. Our old friend can finally put his dear mum to a resting she so richly deserved after a confusing and bewildering final few years as life ebbed away.
A small woman with a large heart, one who I remember to be a constant of life growing up as a kid around the cricket field where we played out all year round. In later life she – unknowingly – aided and abetted my various attempts at truancy with regular cups of tea and biscuits, which I gladly accepted as a good trade for walking the dog. And like most small women – my mum included – there was always a fearsome, rectifying clip around the ear if you got too big for your small boots.
I could not help musing that as our parents, relatives and friends all grow older, visits to this cheerless place become more and more frequent, eerily almost always in the dark winter months, not that a few rays of summer sun would have us dancing and clapping in the aisles, shaking the roof timbers. Although, as many times as we visit, the almost conveyor belt precision of the process still makes you wonder if, at this last point in life, an extra five or ten minutes would be so damaging to the council coffers?
What should be a reflective time to pause for one final time is an exercise in musical chairs as funeral corteges jostle for places like buses on a busy street; the next group of mourners take their spots, mingling for one brief moment, into one seamless crowd of grief, like commuters struggling to fight for space on a crowded pavement. A lifetime of queues and traffic jams are all replayed for one final time.
I was sat there staring at the backs of some of my oldest friends, conscious of the thinning and greying heads, conscious that from behind I probably offered the same view; we are all getting older and there is nothing we can do about it…our “invincible” days are seemingly long gone.
It is often illuminating to listen as the priest delivers the eulogy; generally speaking of a person they have never met, relying on testimonies offered by those left behind unprepared for this moment, as a life you also knew little of unfolds. Stories of enduring relationships – Olga and Ken were married 51 years – and of lives evolving long before you ever knew these people are often fascinating, if too late to fully appreciate. Life moves so quickly and we are all guilty of being unable to find time to pause.
Most of us simply don’t want to think too long about the inevitable end but some cannot resist making one final statement on life, often via the closing tune as we have to leave them. As befitting his personality, a much loved umpire from the local cricket leagues, who was a Leeds United nut, left us all with a rendition of “Marching On Together” booming out as we said our final goodbye. I could picture old Harry banging on the roof of the coffin, chanting “Leeds, Leeds, Leeds!” It was hard not to smile leaving the chapel that day even if I cannot stand Leeds.
They say you should live every minute as if it were your last but none of us ever fully understand the real significance of that until it’s far too late. In 2012, an Australian palliative nurse who counselled the dying in their last days, revealed the most common regrets of people in their last few hours. And among the top, from men in particular, is ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’; at least I can tick that one off my list.
The book is called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying and describes the unique clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives and how we might learn from their wisdom. It is far from depressing and well worth a read, maybe, after first having made your advance list if only to compare notes. Having made that list, what will you do about it?
Tomorrow is another day and life will march on, as it has to, with no disrespect to Olga. Moments of introspection will slowly fade and we will start to queue again for the living bits of life until the next calling. I decided, long ago, that I will go with Bruce Springsteen blasting the place to bits, although I have not decided which track yet; I hope I get time to make that last choice. Maybe Dancing in the Dark will do, so I can go just like old Harry, banging on the tub one last time?
“Enjoy Yourself” is a popular song published in 1949, with music written by Carl Sigman and lyrics by Herb Magidson.
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