It is now two weeks since Meg died and yesterday was to be something approaching a ‘normal’ Saturday as last weekend I was sitting in beautiful sunshine in a friend’s house in Hampshire helping to celebrate his 80th birthday and chatting with two of my closest friends from my University of Winchester days. As I walked down the hill towards the centre of town, I cannot fail to notice that I am not walking as well as I used to and my back and hips are feeling the strain. What I think has happened over the past months and probably a year or so is that pushing Meg in a wheelchair – first a simple transit model and then a heavier and more sophisticated model – has meant that I have ‘de facto’ had the assistance of the equivalent of a giant wheeling frame. Strange as it may sound, pushing Meg in her wheelchairs has proved easier than just walking on my own. I think that I may have to severely limit the walking that I do until I built up my strength again as today I did allow myself the luxury of a brief saunter along the High street and the journey back seemed quite a struggle for me and I had to stop a few times to have a rest. I suspect that when pushing Meg a bit of adrenaline rush assisted me but now I am having to do things a lot more carefully. Although I am not a natural ‘pill popper’ I may have to resort to some Ibuprofen first thing every morning until my hips and back are in a better place. My son had arranged to be in the house before he journeys down to Watford to see his in-laws but we discussed the type of footwear that I now probably need to give me some extra cushioning when I walk any distance. I did intend to go to Droitwich to visit a shoe shop I know where the manager really looks after his customers but I have bitten the bullet as they say and ordered two types of footwear, one a trainer recommended by my chiropodist the other day and the other recommended by my son today – they will both take the best part of a week to actually arrive. I cooked myself some lunch finishing off some meat-in-gravy left over from a day or o ago but filling enough, with baked potato and some fine beans.
In the afternoon, I started to watch a film of the opera ‘La Traviata’ but given that the whole opera is based around a heroine who is dying (of consumption) from the very opening of the opera, then this was a decidedly bad choice of viewing. Fortunately, I was saved from myself by the fact that YouTube encounters buffering problems where the whole transmission/down load ‘freezes’ but on this occasion I was not too unhappy. It had been intention to do a mowing of the back lawn but the weather turned a bit rainy and I thought that this could be left for another day. I received a text from my Italian friend from down the road but when I tried to contact her, her landline was engaged and her mobile diverted to a callbox so I felt a little thwarted by this. Yesterday evening, I decided to engage in ‘normal’ living by resuming my attendance at the Saturday evening Mass in my local church. I had not attended during the latter stages of Meg’s illness when she could not be left and I think it is probably fifteen months since I last attended. I was not particularly looking forward to this event but I was greeted very warmly and affectionately by several of the congregation, some of whom had already heard about Meg’s passing. The congregation has more than its fair sprinkling of Irish Catholics, including one sprightly gentleman who was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus and was only given three months to live but is still with us at least ten months after this prognosis and was still well enough to read some of the lessons. Last December, he took a photo of us in the Waitrose cafe and forwarded it onto me at the time but said that he would do so again. What a remarkable and inspirational man he has proved to be, ready at any time to meet his Maker but not yet called to join him. So I received quite a degree of emotional warmth and support from the congregation, some of whom I am sure will probably attend the funeral (and I hope the funeral tea) to give Meg a good send-off. The phrase which crosses their lips most frequently about Meg is that she was ‘such a lovely lady’ with which sentiment I naturally agree. After I had returned home and had some soup, I decided to phone my niece and I was glad that I did. She informed me that many of my Yorkshire family were arranging their lives so that they could make the long journey and attend the funeral and anticipating that some might have long journeys, this is why the funeral was timed for 12.00pm midday. Upon hearing this news, I busied myself for the rest of the evening preparing a one page website with directions for the funeral including a link to the church (so that they could recognise it) and a link to the Holiday Inn (which also contains a map). I have put the website URL in various places but I repeat it here so that it can be easily found:
https://meg-funeral.kesland.info
There is actually a way that I can that ‘kesland.info’ is actually me and nobody else but I won’t go in to the explanation at this particular point except to say that my birthday date is encoded into it. Some readers of this blog may be able to work it out for themselves. I have started to think about the numbers of people who are likely to attend the funeral and of course estimating this takes some guess work. But the Holiday Inn have been good about this and I know that if the numbers fall short I will still be charged for the contracted number but if I were to exceed this by even quite a significant amount, they would ignore this. I suppose this must be a common problem that they must meet all the time in arranging funeral teas.
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