Unless you’re over 80 , like a free tea, and the person who died is over 80 , no-one likes a funeral do they ?.
My lovely Louey was cutting my hair on Friday and we had the usual conversations – dating on line ( him not me ) …… Sitges- I’ve never been there , he has -but somehow thinks I have too …… Amsterdam – his Dad lives there as does my boy ….being gay in the Iraq army ( again him not me and probably the most interesting conversation ) ……. when he throws in a swerved ball ‘ what are you doing at the weekend?’ .I reply with ‘I’m going to a funeral ‘ , to which he says ‘ I hate funerals ‘ , to which I say ‘ does anyone like them ?’ Now go back and read my first sentence .
So yesterday was Tony’s Funeral at St Joseph’s Church , south of the river .
By God it was sad but by God it was amazing .
As I’ve said before ( I read it and am certainly not clever enough to have made it up ) grief is the price you pay for love , and John and I have grown to love Mary and Tony . They are 2 of our closest friends . We were all due to take Vilma and Emerald ( the vans ) and Frank and Daisy ( the dogs ) to our favourite campsite in Eype,Dorset in two weeks time . Funnily enough after Tony died we were talking to his kids about our trips ( remember when we went in the winter and Storm Angus hit ? ) and all the time we’d been going to Eype they thought we were going to Ypres in Belgium – don’t know why it’s funny but it is- the dogs haven’t even got passports
Just too much to write – but if you’ve never seen a Met Police Guard of Honour , it is very impressive and incredibly moving .To see about 100 of his colleagues line the street in honour to him we testament indeed .
Anyway I could go on and on but I would just like to end with what the order of service ended with
He smelled the garden.The yellow shield of light smote his eyes and he whispered,
”Life is so beautiful,’
Yes’he thought,’If I can die saying
‘Life is beautiful’ the nothing else is important.’
from ‘The Godfather’ by Mario Puzo