My mum's still with us, though getting more and more like a ghost with each passing month. Doesn't recognize us, conversations are getting beyond her now, she drifts around looking for her mum, content enough to drift and look, but definitely fading...
After a recent visit, I found myself thinking about what's going to happen as far as her funeral. It's a horrible thought and I told myself off for even thinking it, she's not dead and might not be for years, but it keeps niggling, and for the following reasons.
I'm an only child, married, two boys. We do have some extended family but my mum hated them all and I grew up not knowing them. I have a number or two somewhere but for the most part these are people I haven't met. My mum also didn't bother with a social life or friendships. When I was a child she knew some people from work but she didn't see them socially. She then went into business for herself and the only relationships she had were business ones, and most of them (actually all of them) weren't good. She would always see the worst in people and would find fault pretty much as a matter of course.
She had some kind of an undefined faith in something, but wasn't religious at all and through the years had plenty to say about the failings of the Church.
I'm an atheist.
So what do I do as far as her funeral? She wouldn't have wanted a religious service, I don't think, and the humanist ones I've been to, while lovely, don't seem appropriate given that the grand number of attendees is going to be me, my husband and our two sons, so four. I don't need a stranger who has never met my mum standing up in front of us to say things about her, things I would have to tell them first anyway. Does that make sense?
But to do nothing seems bizarre. Obviously the four of us are going to be there, at the crematorium, and we can talk and remember her, but it doesn't seem enough. Go to the crematorium then go out for a meal... ? Seems wrong...
A traditional funeral, while very obviously not an easy day for those left behind, kind of tells us what to do with ourselves on the day, and having a group of people to share it with gives meaning, marks the moment.
So what do I do?
After a recent visit, I found myself thinking about what's going to happen as far as her funeral. It's a horrible thought and I told myself off for even thinking it, she's not dead and might not be for years, but it keeps niggling, and for the following reasons.
I'm an only child, married, two boys. We do have some extended family but my mum hated them all and I grew up not knowing them. I have a number or two somewhere but for the most part these are people I haven't met. My mum also didn't bother with a social life or friendships. When I was a child she knew some people from work but she didn't see them socially. She then went into business for herself and the only relationships she had were business ones, and most of them (actually all of them) weren't good. She would always see the worst in people and would find fault pretty much as a matter of course.
She had some kind of an undefined faith in something, but wasn't religious at all and through the years had plenty to say about the failings of the Church.
I'm an atheist.
So what do I do as far as her funeral? She wouldn't have wanted a religious service, I don't think, and the humanist ones I've been to, while lovely, don't seem appropriate given that the grand number of attendees is going to be me, my husband and our two sons, so four. I don't need a stranger who has never met my mum standing up in front of us to say things about her, things I would have to tell them first anyway. Does that make sense?
But to do nothing seems bizarre. Obviously the four of us are going to be there, at the crematorium, and we can talk and remember her, but it doesn't seem enough. Go to the crematorium then go out for a meal... ? Seems wrong...
A traditional funeral, while very obviously not an easy day for those left behind, kind of tells us what to do with ourselves on the day, and having a group of people to share it with gives meaning, marks the moment.
So what do I do?