No Weddings and Thirteen Funerals

I’m writing this on board the plane to Bari – a first for me.  I’m so tired I can’t sleep, stuck in limbo between places, anxious, as ever about what I’ll find when I arrive.  A dread instilled in me by a worrying Mother who was capable of working herself into frenzy if I was even a few minutes late.   Even if I wasn’t late come to think of it.

On Friday and Saturday I attended the last two days of my Humanist funerals course, during which we trainee celebrants each conducted “mock” funerals.  I presided over the burial of fiesty motorcycle riding, drug abusing Kellie in the grounds of the St John’s hotel, Solihull, on Friday afternoon as the sun went down.  Having done four burials on the Friday we sat through nine cremations at the Robin Hood Crematorium on the Saturday.  The day began with a tour of the “backstage” areas, including the ovens and a collection of blackened artificial hips and knee joints, by a lugubrious Brummie with a beergut and a nylon tie.

By cremation number eight most of us were getting hysterical.

Our parting in the fading light of the Crematorium gardens was strangely emotional, given that we had only known one another for five days spread over a couple of months.  Hugs and farewell kisses and injunctions to “keep in touch”.  But then I guess you'd possibly struggle to go to thirteen funerals in a lifetime, let alone do them in two days.