We’ll meet again
Sunday, 08 October, 2006
The funeral was on Friday afternoon. I worked in the morning and left just after lunch. I've never been to a Christian funeral before. It was held at St. Andrew's Anglican church, Sans Souci. The coffin was placed on the raised part of the church up the front in what some people like to jokingly call the “Holy of Holies”—the part where the organ and the choir stalls were. It was draped in the Australian flag and had flowers on top. Down the front Cathy and Hans had set up a table which had photo frames of grandma and her husband, the bear that Cathy had made for her when she had been put in the nursing home, and her blue felt hat.
We sang “Amazing Grace”, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” and “I Cannot Tell”. Psalm 23, John 14:1-6 and Romans 8:28-39 were read. We were all involved in the service somehow—Ben and I performed “God is Good” and “Danny Boy” (I never realised how sad the lyrics are to that song); Ben did an eulogy (reading bits of grandma's book where she had written about her life); Tim (Ben's brother) did an eulogy (and cried during it which shocked me as I've never seen him cry before); and Ros (Tim's wife) and Lizz did Bible readings. We did a lot of crying (I wonder if we set each other off—it made me cry to see other family members crying) but there was also a lot of joy too because we knew death wasn't the end for grandma: in Christ, we have the hope of heaven and death has no sting. The service made me think that this is the Christian life: sadness and joy, sadness and joy.
Afterwards people came up to me and told me that I was really brave to sing which I found a bit ridiculous because it had nothing to do with bravery. But it was nice they acknowledged that it was hard because usually the last thing you feel like doing when you're sad is singing: your throat closes up and you get all choked up. We had afternoon tea in the hall which was put on by the ladies at St. Andrew's and it was nice to catch up with everybody—even if my brain was a bit sluggish and I had a bit of trouble placing names to faces for some of the guests.
Then we went back to Hans and Cathy's. Tim and Ros went and got us some Thai food and we just sat around talking (and I had brought my knitting so I knitted) until around 9:30 when Ben and I drove home.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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I’m sad and happy for you.