Now it is two days since Meg’s funeral, I have taken the opportunity to circulate the URL of the website containing the Eulogy which I delivered in the church. This means that for those who couldn’t make the church service, they can still read a short account of Meg’s life and have something other than a photograph to remember her by. With modern phones, it is so easy just to put a finger in the ‘Message’ space to paste a link and I have been right through my phone to do this so my message has been spread far and wide. I did this to a friend and near neighbour of ours who lives in Hampshire and she also clicked the Tributes link and discovered what her own children had written to me (and she had no idea about it) I am hoping that if they journey North on a holiday that we might all meet up again and exchange good news of past times. Without wanting to sound excessively morbid or self-obsessed about all of this, I did find a website under the title ‘Finding Comfort in Words: Popular Quotes about Grief’ and I must say that I have found the contributions quite helpful. A common theme throughout many of the quotes is that grief is just the flip side of love, best expressed pithily by our late departed Queen in the profound quote that ‘grief is the price we pay for love’. I have just received some amazing emails and one, in particular from one of my female ex University of Winchester colleagues. She explained how wonderful she found the music and how much she had enjoyed the service overall and the rest of the day when in the evening we drank champagne and told each other stories before having a meal together. I must say that I had not been looking forward to the day of the funeral but now it is all over, it is absolutely the case that having a magnificent send off for Meg in a ‘Celebration of Life’ event does great things for the alleviation of the grieving process. A final thought on all of this is the amazing contribution that our domestic help is making in all of this. Week by week, things get cleared that would act as reminders of Meg and are in fact, clutter, so a lot of shoes have been removed from the shoe rack in the hall, as well as outdoor coats from the clothes rack we have underneath the stairs in our hall. Not only does this remove what is clutter but it helps in the therapeutic process as well. I would go as far to say that it takes a good family friend to assist you in all of this as the grieving person has a little too much emotional attachment to be able to do it efficiently. Often this is another family member, of course, but I am delighted I/we are getting on with this job sooner rather than later.
In the morning, I walked down into town and met up with two of my normal Wetherspoon’s friends. Then we were joined by my University of Birmingham friend so after I had taken coffee with my normal Saturday group, I continued with my University of Birmingham friend and Seasoned World Traveller with whom I used to have intense quasi political/philosophical discussions in the park during the dark COVID days. With Meg being unable to participate in these discussions and my needing to get her home, we have not had the opportunity to have these types of discussion for a couple of years now so we made up for it this morning. In fact, we are probably all going to out for the day as a threesome on Sunday morning where no doubt we will continue to argue and to discuss. I have also been in contact with an Asian lady from South Africa who used to live around the corner but has now moved to Droitwich. We have kept in touch and will probably meet up for a coffee and/or a drink when I get back from Yorkshire next Friday.
For lunch I threw together some stir-fry vegetables, add some remains of ham and then turned the whole into a curry, most of which I ate but some of which for later on in the day. After lunch, once I had had a bit of a rest I decided to give the front lawns a cut. To be honest, they did not really need it but I like to keep up the routine but the grass is past its rapid growth spurt and we have not had a lot of rain to encourage it to grow. On Saturday evenings, I generally go to church and after my local church had done us proud for Meg’s funeral celebrations so I thought it important that I go this weekend As soon as I stepped out of the door, I realised that I had no car,(the car having been returned to Motability) so I phoned up my local taxi form and got a taxi at a reasonable price that arrived within 5 minutes. After the service, my eucharistic minister/organist parishioner and her husband gave me a lift home and they themselves were looking forward to a week away in Portugal starting next Tuesday. I returned home and finished off the curry which I followed by some ice cream and then prepared for an early night as I may have quite a busy day tomorrow. Last night in the middle of the night I saw a fascinating podcast between Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell and their broadcasts, although late at night, are well informed and fascinating. They were both of the view that the Iranians pummelled by the Israelis and let down by the Americans who were supposedly organising peace talks were pushed into a corner. These analysts thought that the Iranians could now go out to develop a nuclear weapon as this was the only way to counteract the overarching power of the Israeli military. So suddenly, the world is a much more dangerous place and a nuclear confrontation has moved several notches closer.