It is Easter Saturday, that day of waiting, of anticipation for those of us who know the full story – but surely a day full of deep disbelief, despair and confusion for those within the story. To finish what I started yesterday, here are the thoughts that I wrote on the day of mum’s funeral, as well a poem written by her that describes the agony of a life coming to its end – as well as the promise of new life to come…

I have been awake since the early hours, with a feeling of dread in my stomach. I have this overwhelming thought in my head: I don’t want to go. I’ve been desperate to get to my dad, to make sure he is OK now we are isolating, but now I want to hide away and pretend this isn’t happening. Because we can’t do what mum wanted, and there are so many people who can’t be with us today.

We have 100 orders of service sat here in a box, which my husband designed beautifully. Will we get to use them one day at a later celebration? Who knows… For now, we will meet and do a stripped back service, simply there to honour mum and this particular moment.

It all feels so harsh – and I’m so heartbroken. I have had a flurry of messages today from friends and one really struck me – it’s something I am going to try and cling on to as I pray for the Holy Spirit to be with us in this most awful of days: “praying you will know that you have God with you as the guest of honour bringing his comfort”. I know I need to turn to gratitude, as I try to so often when I feel myself spiralling. And I am so, so glad that we can still do today, especially as I heard yesterday of someone whose dad died alone due to the virus, and only a couple of people can be at the funeral, standing far apart. And a friend is unable to attend her grandfather’s funeral tomorrow due to symptoms in her household – but neither can the rest of the immediate family so the crematorium will go ahead without them. This is only going to get harder isn’t it? So cruel; so difficult to deal with. 

Lord, all I want to do is scream: “Why? Why is this happening? Can’t you step in and do something?” I know you are still sovereign and you are still in control – and that one day we will understand, but I certainly don’t right now. Suffering, death, isolation, loneliness is all around – and it is suffocating…

Travelling down

I was expecting to write how eerie it was, with no one else on the roads, but we have passed many cars. I have found myself pondering what everyone else must be doing. We passed one car full of orange-jacketed men, presumably construction workers off to a job. Should they be? And did all the rest of the people we have passed have legitimate reasons for being in their cars? How many were travelling to funerals just like us…and how many were flouting the guidelines to go for a drive in the country?

My thoughts were cruelly interrupted when we passed the entrance to the crematorium, zooming past in order to pick up my dad. For three years or more, we used to leave my parents’ house and, as we passed that spot, I would often have a little cry, as my immediate thought was: “Will the next time I come here be for my mum’s funeral?” That is actually coming true today…

The service

We pulled into the crematorium, to find more cars than we were expecting. We checked the list of funerals, and which chapel we would be in – one chapel had back-to-back funerals, but mum’s was the last in the chapel we were going to. We milled around outside, the eight of us waiting for our timed slot. My mum and sister’s pastor arrived, desperate to hug us but staying a distance away. My sister’s fiancé, who works in a care home, hadn’t thought he could come, but appeared and, again, kept his distance.

Due to the social distancing rules, we had to wait for the pall bearers to carry mum’s coffin in and depart back out before we could go in. The chapel was big – sadly, we know the room would have been packed in normal circumstances. We were invited to sit on the front row but had already spoken to the pastor and elected to all stand together, in a spaced horseshoe around mum’s coffin (apart from my sister’s fiancé, who stood away from us all, at the back).

We had decided to keep the entrance and exit music mum had chosen but take out the songs we were going to sing together. So, after the pastor welcomed us and prayed, my daughter and niece read a poem that mum had picked. Then my husband read out a Bible passage and spoke a few words, in which he mentioned how the current physical limitations we are all experiencing are perhaps offering us a little insight into what mum, and others who suffer from chronic illnesses, face day by day, year by year with no let up.

It was then my turn. I read some memories of mum that my son had written (on the first day he had had off school – I took him out a few days before his school officially closed, so that we would all have the best chance of remaining healthy for the funeral day). Then I shared a poem that mum had written 13 years ago, describing the physical struggles she faced daily, but also the future hope she clung to. When I was searching through her poems a couple of years ago, as we were planning the funeral together, I had stumbled across it and asked if I could read it. I felt it would give all those who attended a real insight into her daily life. Sadly, those of us who were there had already seen those struggles up close, but it was still very special to read ‘Goodbye Death’ in honour of mum (the poem can be read below).

The pastor then shared further thoughts, including some of the things mum used to say to her when she did her weekly visits once mum was housebound. The tears flowed freely as she told us how proud mum was of us. We each smiled as the exit music came on; an upbeat jazz number that mum had chosen specifically to make people laugh after what she knew would have been an ordeal for some. When well, mum had danced some Charleston moves to that particular song; part of us wanted to do so right there in the chapel – but tears flowed again as a wave of sadness of not being able to share that moment with so many friends and family who should have been there overtook. 

Afterwards

Then it was over; we had booked a double slot because our programme had been so packed – we managed to fill half an hour, but it all seemed to be over so quickly. There was a sense of relief, but also of how unreal it seemed. Without all the others; without the refreshments we had had planned at a local vineyard for us to be able to mingle with everyone else, sharing memories and the photo montage we had pulled together, it did seem incomplete. Instead, we drove dad home, and spent the afternoon playing some of mum’s favourite games that we always played when we gathered together as a family. At one point, we discovered that most of us had been awake at 5am – that was the time mum had died on 2 February, and so it felt fitting we had each marked it mentally on the day of her funeral.

So, the day was intimate, touching, painful – and surreal. We managed to laugh as well as cry together so, in that way, it was a fitting tribute to mum. Ultimately, we had already said goodbye to mum by her bedside as she died, and the body in the coffin that was on show, was just the empty shell. We knew she had already enjoyed almost two months of dancing with her heavenly father – the service brought some sense of closure to us, but we still hope to celebrate her life with the wider group who should have been with us later this year…

Here is mum’s poem, which describes the desperate journey of her body giving way, of longing for release – and the joy of the promise of resurrection with Jesus…

Goodbye death

It’s cold in here,
A cold that reaches deep inside the bones.
The normal warmth of flesh
Is ebbing, receding, withdrawing
From a body, racked in pain.
It’s had enough, this body
It’s ready to let go,
To walk right in 
To the grisly spectre of death
Beckoning, calling to failing breath.
Flesh, no longer responding to life.
Hands, unable to grasp or reach
To hold a loved one.
Time, ticking away.
How many more rasping breaths
Until  –  Release.

No longer struggling, lungs relaxing
Letting go, it’s time now to depart.
Death has conquered the flesh
It no longer has the will to live.
But the spark inside, the soul, the spirit
Reaches out, towards the beckoning light.
The light of life is waiting, calling
Into eternal life, into everlasting day.
No more darkness, no more pain,
No more fighting the enemy, the disease,
But life again, a new abundant life
Free from pain and sorrow.
A body new, to dance, and sing and laugh
Join with the angels round the throne.
Life on earth has finalized
Now is life eternal
All promises fulfilled
A life now with our Saviour God
In heaven’s glorious light.