The cloud of forgetting

Working at home on the week's tasks this morning, then up to Glyntaff Crematorium for the funeral of a lady who had spent her last years with Alzheimer's disease in a care home on Cathedral Road. His sister is in a care home with Alzheimer's disease up in the Midlands. She'd been married and divorced when she was young and lived alone. Her nephew from Nottingham was the only family mourner. Three of the care home staff came to say goodbye. The smartly dressed young woman solicitor looking after her affairs attended the service but did not take part like the others.

It's difficult to celebrate the memory of someone about whom so little is known. I can recall funerals where what was known about the deceased nobody present wanted to remember. Her nephew had only a few recollections of his aunt from half a century ago when she was young and trendy, an early adopter of consumer gadgets appreciating things new. After the divorce, when he was young and living far away, he'd rarely seen her and couldn't say what she had done with her life. The nurses said she liked to take care of her appearance and was cheerful. That's all.

It's not unusual for clergy to perform funerals for people of whom little is known, or about whom much has been forgotten - those who lived alone by choice and slipped out of family and community awareness. I was reminded of a story by Milan Kundera about a woman plagued by her inability to remember what her dead lover looked like. Their love had been so intense, would she too fade away as his memory faded? A little of us is lost as memories fade of those who have gone before us, because our relationships help to make us who we are. All we can do is remind ourselves that God knows and values us for who we are. God holds us in the communion of his love. We can only entrust them and us to Him in love, accepting how little we understand of the mystery of person-hood, and the mystery of God.