July 25th
We get the kids to childminder and nursery early and drive down to Bournemouth. It’s a beautiful sunny July day. The traffic has been kind.
Emma, one of Amanda’s sister Tina’s kids, has written a poem to her uncle. She’s 11. She would like to read it out at the funeral as long as she can go up with me. Just the thought of this is heartbreaking. We arrive at Amanda’s mother’s house. It is filled with cards of sympathy and the atmosphere is stilted and surreal. We change and I take my printed sheets of eulogies and practise on my own at the bottom of the garden. The funeral cars arrive and little Emma travels with me at the back of the cortege. We arrive at the rural setting of Bournemouth’s crematorium and it is packed with waiting friends and family. Jonathon was only 31. It is standing room only and is hard to imagine the chapel ever being this full. After the introductory piece by the Vicar I take Emma up with me to the lectern and introduce her. She reads her poem calmly. I find myself turning away and breathing deeply and flicking my face in an attempt to avoid falling to pieces. There isn’t a dry eye in the house. I steel myself and read all the eulogies. One line of my wife’s makes me stop in my tracks. I have to collect myself to carry on. It wasn’t a profound or heavy comment just something that touched me. Jonathon had been a voracious consumer of comedy. When ever he came to stay with us in London, which he often did, we would always visit a comedy club or 2. Amanda commented that as a result she would always remember him smiling and laughing and pointed out that ‘I will miss all the laughing we still had to do’
Amanda’s mother is so wracked with grief that she can barely stand up. I’ve been no stranger to funerals these past few years, but this was another thing altogether.
We meet up with family members that we only ever seem to see at tragic events like this and make a promise to organise a special event free of grief soon.
Soon there is only Amanda, her mother, John and myself left.
Tonight will be difficult. The evening after a funeral always is. This will be harder than most. Losing a child is something you never truly get over.
We drive back to London.
We get the kids to childminder and nursery early and drive down to Bournemouth. It’s a beautiful sunny July day. The traffic has been kind.
Emma, one of Amanda’s sister Tina’s kids, has written a poem to her uncle. She’s 11. She would like to read it out at the funeral as long as she can go up with me. Just the thought of this is heartbreaking. We arrive at Amanda’s mother’s house. It is filled with cards of sympathy and the atmosphere is stilted and surreal. We change and I take my printed sheets of eulogies and practise on my own at the bottom of the garden. The funeral cars arrive and little Emma travels with me at the back of the cortege. We arrive at the rural setting of Bournemouth’s crematorium and it is packed with waiting friends and family. Jonathon was only 31. It is standing room only and is hard to imagine the chapel ever being this full. After the introductory piece by the Vicar I take Emma up with me to the lectern and introduce her. She reads her poem calmly. I find myself turning away and breathing deeply and flicking my face in an attempt to avoid falling to pieces. There isn’t a dry eye in the house. I steel myself and read all the eulogies. One line of my wife’s makes me stop in my tracks. I have to collect myself to carry on. It wasn’t a profound or heavy comment just something that touched me. Jonathon had been a voracious consumer of comedy. When ever he came to stay with us in London, which he often did, we would always visit a comedy club or 2. Amanda commented that as a result she would always remember him smiling and laughing and pointed out that ‘I will miss all the laughing we still had to do’
Amanda’s mother is so wracked with grief that she can barely stand up. I’ve been no stranger to funerals these past few years, but this was another thing altogether.
We meet up with family members that we only ever seem to see at tragic events like this and make a promise to organise a special event free of grief soon.
Soon there is only Amanda, her mother, John and myself left.
Tonight will be difficult. The evening after a funeral always is. This will be harder than most. Losing a child is something you never truly get over.
We drive back to London.
posted by Jakko's blog at 9:30 AM
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