Last journey

An early start this morning driving to rendezvous at the Vera Playa urbanización with the bereaved family whose father died unexpectedly last Thursday, after relocating to Spain only six months ago. We travelled in convoy to Vera Pueblo Thanatorio to meet the funeral director and other mourners, and then travelled together to Antas Thanatorio for the service. Having settled here just six months ago, the family didn't expect many of their recent acquaintances would turn up at short notice, but were surprised to be greeted by twenty people, members of Vera Playa Bowls Club, of which they'd become members, turning up to join them for the service. 

It was a remarkably kind act of solidarity on the part of settled ex-pat residents, quick to take new people to heart, and feel for them in their distressing plight. I was reminded of my time in Geneva, where Holy Trinity Church members were open and permanently geared up to help newcomers to find their way round and settle into their new community. It's in stark contrast to the anonymity that characterises residential areas of the new urban mobile classes of British society.

Antas Thanatorio opened in 2012 is to the west outside of the town, up above the deep arroyo etched by the rio Antas through its soft sandy bedrock. As we arrived a huge plume of smoke was rising on the wind and covering the town across the arroyo. Someone on the neighbouring finca overlooking the Thanatorio had been clearing the terrain of dead vegetation, a common fire safety precaution in this arid region, but had started a bonfire in the corner nearest to and overlooking the Thanatorio. Fire as well as smoke greeted us as we drove in. 

Cremations, unless the municipal Thanatorio has facilities on site, take place in a industrial zone elsewhere, so the farewell ritual are performed in a place of order and tranquility. On this occasion, there was no escaping the allusion to what was going to happen once we were done praying, even though it would happen somewhere far away. The family were very stoic about it, absorbed in their thoughts as they steeled themselves for the final farewell. Tomorrow, they will return to Lancashire with the ashes, for a memorial service arranged in church in the village they had so recently quit. None of us know what's going to happen next in this life, do we?

There was an article by Kevin Holdsworth about funeral ministry, criticising today's tendency to deliver neatly consumer packaged solutions, which curtail the natural process of mourning, by relieving the bereaved of excessive contact with the dead. The importance of acting out the deceased Last Journey, as part of the process of letting them go was well stated. I was glad to have read this in view of what I was entrusted with today.

I returned in time to do some shopping and cook lunch, then while away the rest of the day, with a walk in darkness along the shore in the light of the waning moon, thinking about mortality, thinking about eternity, as happens readily in this end-time of life. We all return to dust, to atoms, to even more fundamental particles and energy eventually. But what of consciousness, the treasure we cling to until darkness becomes preferable?  

I cling to the consideration that our Creator knows, even if we haven't a clue.