I’ll light a candle

Two Christmases ago I was recovering from arranging my mother’s funeral. At exactly the wrong time we are expected to ring everyone and hold back our tears while trying to break the sadness to them. We find ourselves tending to the ones who cry back at us over the phone. We offer them soothing words. 

But it’s my mum that’s gone - not theirs. 

As soon as that’s done there's no time to absorb the emotional impact and enormity of it all.There are lists to attend to - 

we have to:- 

i) chase our loved one’s GP for a medical note stating cause of expiration

ii) make an appointment with the registrar to record and get the death certificate

iii) find a funeral director that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg

iv) have our loved one’s wishes to the fore when arranging a funeral service and hoping we haven’t got it wrong

v) live in fear of the colossal cost of the funeral as the admin assistant tots it all up on their office calculator:- the cost of the hearse, limousine - one or two? a priest or lay preacher or a celebrant, whether to have a choir, whether to meet and greet at the deceased’s house or at the chapel, deciding on a coffin or casket ... the choice of flowers. 

When the date is arranged we have to make decisions about embalming, death notices, order of service, stationery and photographs, catering - for how many? hymns, songs, eulogy, prayers, readings... it goes on and on. 

vi) And we have to try to decide if we can bear to visit our loved one in the chapel of rest - and if you don’t - knowing there will never be another opportunity.

vii) As if that isn’t enough ... taking suitable clothes to the funeral director for your loved one lying in the coffin.

Have I got it right? Is this what she would have liked? But there's no time to pause. It's on to the next task.

And so it goes.

Christmas is a particularly cruel time for arranging a funeral. And, in my case, all I wanted was to have my mum back. 

In the meantime, while you are trying to gather your thoughts and cope with the shock of bereavement, jingly bells and bright lights beckon to you ... to spend more, eat more and have fun ... more and more.

But you don’t want to. You want to be quiet, to be on your own and have a good cry. Chatting to folk or going to the Christmas market feels loud. Noise and nattering are the last things you want when you are grieving and feeling dog-tired.

And then there are the oddest of people who really have no empathy and say the unkindest of things:

‘You won’t be having to pay any more nursing home fees then.’

‘I’m glad she’s gone. I couldn’t lie in bed like that all day.’

‘I was very upset you didn’t invite me round.’

There are, of course, the kindest of people too. They are the ones you hold in your heart. 

And then there are the middling ones who, to save on postage, put a Christmas card in the same envelope as the ‘With Sympathy’ greeting.

One card has a white lily on it and the other depicts a fat, red Father Christmas and black cat sitting by a roasting fire. The message inside both cards says ‘With love from us all ...’ and a signature.

So which do I display? The ‘With Sympathy’ card or the jolly Santa?

And do I really have to write 80 Christmas cards to the same people I've just informed of a funeral?

Christmas is a time to welcome a new life. A time of happiness. But if you are recently bereaved ‘the joy to the world’ cuts across the need to grieve. No wonder our emotions are turned inside out and our bodies don’t know if it’s day or night, if it’s time to eat or sleep, to laugh or weep. 

               

This year we have time to switch on the fairy lights, wrap presents and display the nativity scene. But somehow the jollity has lost its energy. More important thoughts and feelings have replaced the Christmas card list.

I’ll light a candle to mum’s memory instead. It's fat and creamy white and swathed in ivy, laurel trimmings and sprigs of red-berried holly. 

It’s a Christmas candle - lit for mum.

(With love to Ieva).