Erasure

A longstanding member of the church dies before their time after a short illness. There is tension in the relationships involved, although all of them are of longstanding too – no suspicious new partner within the last few years, for instance, as sometimes happens. But their experience as a Christian is part of this; for some reason, which is never stated (at least to me), their blood family have problems with it. Unless the deceased was, towards them, utterly different from the sweet and gentle person they appeared to me and everyone else, it’s hard to account for. Anger against the relationships that went along with their church life? Anger at God for letting them die?

It's arranged that I will do the funeral, and I have an initial meeting with the deceased’s children. Their requirements are not easy to meet but I prepare to try. But a week beforehand the undertaker phones me and, clearly embarrassed, tells me my services aren’t wanted after all. There will be a civil celebrant instead. It would be untrue to say I’m not saddened, but it also relieves me of the impossible task of having to keep everyone involved happy. I imagine I won’t be welcome at the funeral and so stay away: many other members of the church do attend, and find there’s no mention at all of the faith that was such a central part of the deceased’s life from childhood.

The family got what they presumably wanted, but they will always carry the awareness that, at the moment when most people try to sum up the life of someone they love, they chose to scrub out whole areas of the life concerned. Saddest of all, I imagine it will never be talked about, never dealt with, a rage that’s never questioned, a wound that never gets healed.