A few days ago I was asked if I'd help arrange a memorial service for a British man who'd recently died. Here in Spain, it's not unusual for cremation to follow within forty eight hours of death, whether or not a funeral service can be arranged. We're now planning three weeks ahead.
There are two overlapping patterns. If a burial has been planned, even within the same time-frame, it's a matter of organising a funeral service at very short notice, as I learned during my stay on the Costa del Sol. Perhaps it's because there's perceived to be a stronger connection between the actual rite of passage and interment, for historial reasons. After all, cremation has only been widely adopted in Spain in the late 20th century. Cremation was once a social statement by secularists and radical Christians, rejecting Catholic resistance to anything but burial. But times have changed.
Cremation is more affordable than leasing or buying a space in the ground, in a vault or the ubiquitious columbaria that define southern Europeam cemeteries. Now it's possible to rent a much smaller more economic space to contain cremated remains, if required. Many people of all religous background and none exhibit a preference for scattering cremated ashes in a favourite place, rather than store them in a columbarium, disregarding traditional church teaching about this. It's impossible to ignore this. So a cremation may happen very quickly, and a funeral or memorial service will follow when it is most convenient to the bereaved, who may be scattered too far and wide to gather in haste.
In many ways it's a good compromise, because, the act of farewell, the celebation of a life can receive much more thought and preparation. Hasty disposal may not be without trauma for those who feed the need to make their goodbyes to the departed in person, so preparation of such a service cannot be a matter of routine application of best liturgical practice. It's worth the time, for all touched by the death of someone they feel close to.
So, this morning I headed east up the N340/A7 autovia toward Motril, to meet a widow and a couple of her friends living in the village of La Garnatilla, up in the sierras at nearly a thousand metres above sea level. I missed the junction, and drove as far as the A7 currently goes beyond Motril. It then drops down to sea level and becomes the N340 coast road again. Here I had to go west back to the outskirts of Motril to find the country road I needed - thanks to the mapping device on my Blackberry. If I'd been able to consult it on the move I wouldn't have missed my turning. Even so the drive on the new Autovia section was breathtaking, and worth the inevitable delay.
Descending to Calahonda on the coast road I was struck by the sight of a small coastal town, whose encircling sea plain was covered entirely by white plastic poly-tunnels. No haciendas, no trees, no visible water courses, just market garden greenhouses uninterrupted. I wish I could have stopped and taken a photo of this bizarre landscape. It so defines the economy of this extraordinary fertile region.
La Garnatilla is a hill village which boasts a plaque commemorating its many sons and daughters that have emigrated to other parts of the world over the past century. A sign that the village has not been able to develop and share the prosperity generated by horticulture lower down, nearer the sea. It's a lovely place, however, and return visits by emigrants who made it good elsewhere are a feature of local community life. It's a village where where expatriates have taken on and restored abandoned houses, and occupied them often for decades, becoming part of the community. The death of one of the long standing English residents was what took me there, the service to be arranged in the village church just up the hill from the house.
I never tire of saying what a privilege it is to be invited to share in other's lives at moments like this, to hear their stories, and help them shape what they want to do to say goodbye to a loved one. Back in Cardiff, the journey to make a visit may be a short walk or a ten minute car ride. Today, I drove for an hour along some of southern Europe's awe inspiring highways in search of a house in grief. Work begins at the destination, honouring those in sorrow who've opened their lives and their homes to this stranger, trusting they can be helped to do justice to one they have lost. I'm thankful that I have the freedom and time to continue to offer this ministry on behalf of the church.
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