Keeping in Mind

It was Margaret's anniversary. Former churchwarden and PCC secretary, she died a year ago today. Of course her funeral had to be constrained and covid-compliant, and we said virtually nothing about her life, delaying it, as was so often then, to some putative memorial service some time in the future which may or may not actually happen. 

Although she was not the oldest member of the church, even right at the end of her life, she was the one I directed people towards if they were making any kind of historical enquiry. She remembered everything. Taken into hospital after a fall, the nurse on duty asked her the usual questions about the date and who the Prime Minister was and then when the War ended: Margaret answered not only with the year but the dates of VE and VJ Days and followed up with the Accession of the Queen. When she could no longer get to church and I took her communion at home, there was no news I could tell her that she didn't already know even if nobody could actually be identified who'd told her. Presumably it was angels.

Margaret looked like she should have spent most of her waking hours in a farmhouse kitchen making pies and kneading dough, but although she had a round rural accent I can't remember where she came from before landing up in the middle of Surrey. She was a lady of solid and undemonstrative faith, which she needed when her son, a priest, died of cancer not very much older than I am now. For a long while her eyesight was extremely poor but she never needed a printed order of service as she knew the whole liturgy off by heart (even the modern one). There was a period when hardly anyone was attending the midweek mass on a Tuesday morning, but she almost invariably did, sitting in the same spot with her hands folded, reciting all the words. One St George's Day as part of my homily I said a bit of Henry V's speech from Shakespeare's account of Agincourt, and I could see Margaret saying it along with me.

This evening I said the Office in the Lady Chapel, grateful after a wearing day (due to nobody but me) to be alone. Except that I found myself looking across to where Margaret used to sit, and thanking God for her passing across my life for a few years.