My Grandmother’s Funeral

Today was the day of my grandmother's funeral, four weeks after she had died. To date, she is the closest person to me who has died and I am not sure I am dealing well with the grief. Indeed, I have tried to be jocular, put a positive spin on it and reassure myself that the Alzeihmer's which contributed to her death means she is now in a far better place. Certainly, in the last twelve months, she has struggled to deal with the illness, finding it frustrating she doesn't know who she is and thus lashing out at those who were caring for her. In all respects, she is now in a better place, but that doesn't mean that my emotions are centered.

The ceremony at Darlington Crematorium was a mere half an hour in length, with my uncle going into the details of her life and my brother giving a speech about his childhood memories of her, which of course largely relate to my own. I didn't remember one of his stories, while in a second story he told I had a different perspective, but it was good to hear these anecdotes of happier times, of warming childhood memories. My family has always been a little fractured and it was certainly the case going into the funeral, but there did seem to be something of a connection between us as we reminisced. In many ways this was the perfect antidote to the trepediation I had feeling about the funeral over the previous twenty-four hours and the frustrations of my mother surrounding its arranging.

The power of reminiscing was also on show when we went to the wake at the nearby Blackwell Grange hotel. The food was modest, but adequate, with pork pies and sausage rolls being presented amongst a panoply of sandwiches. The scones were rather dry, but the conversation was anything but, as we caught up with a number of more distant family members over the course of two hours. Alas, one thing that was highlighted to me was just how distanced I feel from everyone and how little I really fit in. I'm close to both my mother and father, but that is seemingly all these days, which did weigh heavy upon me. After this, we all headed back to my father's before he drove me back to Pudsey, then heading down south to drop off my brother and sister.

The rest of the weekend went reasonably well after the train journey from hell (drunk women singing 'We Are Family' and an overflowing toilet that resembled clumpy Nesquik), with me managing to avoid the storms which were at their most severe on Sunday. This was just fortuitous, as I had left London on Friday night and arranged to come back to my Dad’s place on Saturday night to be able to spend more time with the family. It could very easily have been Saturday and Sunday respectively, meaning I would have been caught right in the storm. In the end, my brother, who had booked to come up from London on Sunday morning decided to come up on Saturday evening instead.

 

The storm itself was pretty tepid really, I was certainly expecting more from it. However, as we were to discover, the River Tees at Croft had burst its banks (making Croft-on-Tees more like Croft-In-Tees) and the River Swale in Richmond had done the same, with the swollen river water charging with ferocity through the river valley. We had gone to Richmond, my father and I, to walk around the town and fortunately managed to dodge the rain. By the riverbank, my father asked me to pose for some pictures pointing at the River, as if its height wasn’t blatantly obvious, while I got talking to an elderly man and his wife who has come up from Shropshire “to do a job” which was unfortunately cancelled due to the weather.

 

Our trip to Richmond was the usual - walk around the town and the converted railway station complex - but we did stop off at a new bar we hadn’t spotted before, which served some decent local ales. My father and I also shared some cans of craft beer on both Saturday and Sunday evening in between getting out of the house for some walking, which of course was dependent on the weather. As usual, it was great catching up with him, although the atmosphere was a little heavy due to the pending funeral. My sister and brother were also staying over, and as is typical we didn’t speak too much, with both of them generally doing their own thing. My brother had to prepare his speech for the funeral, which was one reason why he was preoccupied, although he did get to spend time with my father later on Sunday evening.

As for me, I became increasingly withdrawn as Sunday night went on, with a mix of sadness and trepidation over the funeral. I also felt quite dislocated as my brother and sister are now far closer to each other than they are to me, which has been the case since my parents' divorce. The dynamic changed at that point, and as I was at university, I kinda feel I was left behind. The popularity of Animalz didn’t help here either, as I have an ethereal dislike of clubbing and dance music, borne from being left out of things when I was a teenager. It’s a small, dare I say petty, thing but the scars are enduring, so I spent much of Sunday evening questioning my place in the world and whether I'll ever fit in anywhere.

 

This was enhanced by the funeral as the relationship I had with my grandmother was complex - happy as a child but increasingly fractous as an adult - and indeed she was one of the main reasons why I have never felt comfortable with myself. Growing up, anything less than 100% on any test or exam wasn’t good enough so I have always had impossibly high expectations, ones which logically you can never live up to. And yet, as it’s so cemented in my youth, I can’t just shake it off. However, hearing my brother's tribute in particular, positive memories did come flooding back and although Alzeihmer's did really take her from us a number of years ago, it was sad to think that I'd never get those days back again. My brother was very close to my grandmother, phoning her most weeks in a way that I never really did, and as with my paternal grandfather I do regret this. However, my relationship was complicated and perhaps this is just a symptom of it. Either way, I am glad I went to the funeral today and we gave my grandmother a good send-off. RIP Dorothy.