living in a post-funeral fuzz

The blog hiatus was in part due to lack of inspiration. There’s something about winter that makes me want to crawl under a duvet and sleep. Spring, summer, and autumn too, come to think of it. The animals do it and its called “hibernation”. For humans it’s called “just plain lazy”. Anyway, any moment I am not under my duvet I am actively angry about not being there, wishing I was there, and making telepathic love connections with my pillow (Rrrrrr).

The other part was that I took an unscheduled trip back to England for my grandmother’s funeral. Travelling there through Tilford, Runfold, and Crooksbury Hill was a weird time warp because that was my stomping ground around age 4. It all looks same-same but different. I didn’t remember that I remembered swimming in the River Wey at Tilford. The river looked cold.

I’ve gotten used to Israeli burials so a half hour service at Aldershot crematorium was…different. I think it probably would have been a good scene in a film if I hadn’t been directly involved.

To be fair, the service was quite pretty. My aunt and I had been all over the Surrey & Hampshire countryside clipping bits of pussy willow, catkins, and rosemary for the flowers which my aunt arranged in 3 oasii from Forest Lodge Garden Centre to go on the top of the coffin. (If there’s one thing Surrey is proud of, it’s garden centres!) My aunt can kick the asses of most florists. I was there for the creation of the order of service so I knew what was coming. My cousin held her own reading from John. I studied John at school so I know all about the way the truth and the life. Too bad I became a Jew so now I’m forced to stick my fingers in my ears and go la-la-la when I hear the mention of the lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins and to make sure we get a place in heaven. (Looks like I should la-la-la louder, ah?) My Dad cracked during his address and there was not a dry eye in the house.

But all that wouldn’t cut it in Hollywood, no. What would cut it would be the stuttering, paper-shuffling, in-his-eighties vicar. That was pretty good because I couldn’t really understand what he was saying, apart from when he repeated the reading my cousin just did. But the best bit, the highlight of his audition, was undoubtedly the way he pressed the button for the (cheesy, faded, ugly) curtains to close on the coffin, and then held up his hand to wave her off. Randy would have been down with the dawg. Paula would have thought he was beautiful. Simon’s only criticism that he had not chirped “Coo-ee, Nana (see you on the other side)!”

My relationship with my grandmother could have been better. But I was young, my father was a son, my mother didn’t like her in-laws, and my brothers and I had a healthy interest in the sport of taking the piss. But we can’t regret the past now. My Dad said it’s a different country. And my visa’s expired.

And when I got back home, the husband was asking why Nana was cremated. I couldn’t come up with anything better than “because everyone does it”. Is burial so expensive? Then I started to think that maybe I’ll be the only family member with a commemorative stone in the world. Just please make sure I’m really dead first. So that I didn’t watch The Vanishing (original Dutch version) for nothing.