FLORA'S FUNERAL

(Other, better photographs from readers who were there for the occasion would be a welcome addition to this post...  Please send them if you have them!)

So we laid her to rest finally yesterday. Charlotte and her friend gave us a ride from Cirencester to the Woodlands Memorial cemetery, about an hour's drive towards Bath and Bristol and located very close to the Severn River. It's a beautiful location, with gentle slopes and wide open spaces interspersed with green lawns and trees. Not a cemetery feel at all: no headstones, the few markers discreet and laid flat against the grass, unobtrusive to the overall view. Two large old barns have been converted to a reception area...

... and a lovely chapel, mostly unadorned and with plain whitewashed walls.

We visited this first, and found Flora's beautiful sea grass casket...

... quietly awaiting those who'd come to mourn her--and celebrate her life.  A few tears already, adjusting to the notion that the mortal remains that once were my sister's body were contained within, before we headed back to the reception area, where Charlotte and Louise had set up a wonderful table filled with memorabilia--photos, albums, a "memory book" with touching tributes by many of Flora's friends and family, some samples of the jewelry that Flora once made...

Flora, from her earliest days

The guests were now arriving in large numbers--about eighty, I heard, in all.  They included a good number of Flora's Ridhwan friends, with whom she had become very close in the course of years of intense inner work together; old, old friends--now literally old!--whom I had not seen in many years; and family members, including my son Matthew and my granddaughter Alice...

... along with cousins, in-laws and others with whom I had lost touch decades ago.  It was a joy to see them all, though we could all have wished for happier circumstances.

When most of us had arrived, we trooped across to the chapel for the simple service, introduced by Flora's friend Richard.  I followed his introduction with my scheduled reading of "Bluebells"...

... which I managed with only a few interruptions to compose myself when the raw grief overflowed.  We sang the hymn, "Breathe on me, Breath of God," and my niece, Flora's daughter Louise, beautifully read a lovely passage that she and Charlotte had selected from "The Prophet"--though understandably with some of the same difficulties I'd had in keeping my own emotions in check.  Another hymn followed, "Lord of the Dance", and Hugo, Flora's dearly loved grandson, read a short passage with the skill of the trained performer that he has become, and with the love of a grandson who has always been close with his grandmother.  And Marigold, Flora's great and close friend, narrated a concise life story that followed Flora from cradle to grave.  She included the part about feeding lines to Sean Connery, but missed the photograph with Cary Grant!

As the service ended, the coffin was raised to the shoulders of the pallbearers, who carried Flora to the waiting hearse at the door to the chapel...

... and loaded it into the hearse...

... and the whole party of us followed slowly on foot as the hearse drove ahead...

The chief mourners: Louise, Martin (her husband), Charlotte and Hugo (Flora's grandson)

... a few hundred yards out into the cemetery.  I was particularly moved to see, behind us on the walk, our friend John, Flora's former husband and the father of Charlotte and Louise, who made the trip unaided, with quiet insistence, despite the recent replacement of a knee has left him in need of two walking canes.  It must have made it a great deal harder for him than for the rest of us.

At the gravesite, the pallbearers once more shouldered the coffin and brought it from the hearse to a deeply dug grave...

I had hoped for a final chance to say a quiet goodbye, but the coffin was lowered immediately into the grave and Flora's friend, Maggie...

.... an ordained minister, said the final prayers.  Charlotte and Louise... 

... were the first to throw the traditional handful of dirt, and I followed after them.  Then Charlotte stood by, offering flowers for friends and relatives...

... to throw into the grave along with their handful of dirt, and I heard one of them--I think it was Richard--say it very nicely: "Dirt for your body, Flora, and a flower for the spirit."  

I was tempted to stay on and watch the gravedigger...

... seen here explaining the subtleties of his job to Miriam, Flora's friend since schooldays

... complete the work of filling the grave, but instead walked back with Ellie and my cousin Richard...

So sad not have recorded the presence of other cousins with my iPhone

... to the reception.  Charlotte and Louise had laid on a wonderful assortment of sandwiches and cakes, along with a choice of prosecco or mineral water, and we all stood around for quite some time, catching up with old relatives and friends, and making new ones.  I was especially impressed by the loyalty of Flora's small group of Ridhwan friends, some of whom had come from as far away as the south of France to accompany her on her last journey.  I must mention, too, the pleasure of reconnecting with my cousins, David, Nick and Richard on my mother's side, and Richard on my father's.  We were sad that David and Nick's sister, Sue, had been injured in a fall and was unable to make it.  

The crowd had dwindled to a handful by the middle of the afternoon, and we saw the last guests off before the ride back to Cirencester.  What a wonderful job of organizing the event by Charlotte and Louise, and of bringing together so many people who had loved my sister, and been loved by her in return!  I could not have wished her a more heart-warming send-off.  The earth welcomed her remains; her friends and family left uplifted by ceremony and the convivial reception.  She would have been delighted.