After breakfast this morning, exceptionally I had to drive to St Catherine's for Carole's funeral, as I needed the car to get to the Natural Burial Ground behind the hearse after the service in church. First, a Requiem Eucharist for Carole, as the content of the usual midweek service, a pity to miss out on celebrating Saint Clare, but I can't imagine this would be of any concern to the humble holy sister of Francis of Assisi. I had just prepared the altar for the celebration when, to my surprise, Fr Colin appeared in the sacristy. He had been asked to officiate by Mthr Francis, but somehow I'd not been told when I accepted to officiate in her absence at Carole's funeral.
Up to this moment, getting ready to celebrate the Requiem and then officiate at the funeral, with so much detail to get right in order for both to proceed smoothly I felt I wasn't coping so well with the pressure of the occasion, so I was relieved that Fr Colin surprised me by turning up. It was a real blessing just to have half an hour in quiet prayer before the fifty odd congregation arrived for the funeral.
Thereafter it all went as planned, although I was plagued with misty eyesight while I was reading the eulogy, which was most unnerving. It's not just the cataract that's bothering me, but the natural lubrication of my left eyeball which for no apparent reason goes annoyingly thick and milky for brief periods. I was able to sing with the choir for several items, as well as officiate. I've not done that before. The choir sang well, and all in church ended in the way it was meant to.
I followed the hearse from church to the Natural Burial Ground at St Nicholas, and was joined for the Committal by the Methodist Care Home Chaplain serving the place in Penarth where Carole died. It was Carole's wish for her body to be laid to rest in the Meadow on this site, facing east overlooking the whole of the flood plain on which Cardiff is built. It's a beautiful place, a peaceful empty space where the seasons rule rather than human endeavour.
The last time Clare and I were here was at the burial of our friend Moonyeen, our drama queen of an eccentric circle dance teacher. That was ten and a half years ago. I can't believe how fast the years have sped by. Carole and Moonyeen would have got on well together, united by their sense of fun and relish for life, if they'd ever met in this world. Moonyeen, poet and nature mystic, Carole, scientist drilling down into the hidden substances of nature, a key part of her life spent studying worms under the microscope, willing that she be buried where worms may benefit from her repose.
Clare thinks this would be a good place to be buried. In honesty, I don't agree. The Meadow has nothing to say that it is a place where a host of human beings have been laid to rest. It is consciously neutral and religion free. There is nothing anywhere (except perhaps on a digital database) to tell you who has been buried there, whose story concludes in that place. Thousands get cremated and their ashes scattered in a flowerbed in the grounds, maybe even a specific one. You could say that it's just as anonymous as the Natural Burial Ground, I guess, but the place is a little more focussed. There's no way of knowing where in that expanse of grassland your loved one rests - the sense of place is more diffused. If people are happy this, well and good, but for me a return to nature of itself is not enough.
I see a cemetery as a place that tells stories in the memorials they contain, whether ultra simple or exotic and complex. Our life stories begin and end in a variety of communities with stories of their own, and to me, being even insignificantly in such a place is a better ending than disappearing into the anonymity of an unidentifiable location in a field. Well, each to their own I suppose.
From the Natural Burial Ground, I drove home, then Clare and I walked to Llandaff Rowing Club to join the reception for an hour. A video screen played images of Carole taken over the years, and beneath were dozens of photographs pinned on several boards, giving mourners an opportunity to remember. We returned home by bus in time to collect this week's veggy bag and our grocery order from Beanfreaks.
This evening there was a live radio broadcast from the BBC Proms of a performance of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, played by the Aurora orchestra from memory. It'll be replayed on telly on Friday night, and I look forward to seeing as well as hearing. What was special about this evening's broadcast was a detailed musical introduction to themes woven into the suite, involving the audience in humming one of the melodies, illustrating the composer's creative art in action. What next!
Tonight the Perseid meteorite shower is at its best. Pity about the haze and light pollution.
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