So much so that at one point in the service, several of the congregation lifted their heads to listen to the wind as it whistled menacingly around the Church roof.
There is something more emotional about a funeral in winter I always think.
Every colour is muted like the dull green/browns of the graveyard foliage .
The grey of the skies echoing the mood of the moment.
Village Elder Islwyn and Trendy Carol ( lovely handbag btw) were stoic and movingly brave and it was good to hear that their work and friendships were celebrated so publicly by the vicar before the burial in the Churchard where the valiant semicircle of family and villagers braved the icy wind as it raced like a train over the valley floor from the West
A good day for remembering a good neighbor.
ReplyDeletewinter funerals are always more emotional given the coldness of the ground. there's something so stark about lowering a loved one into the icy earth.
ReplyDeleteThere is something comforting about knowing you are going to be buried in a country curchyard, at the heart of community, by people who have loved you and cared for you. A sense of continuity which is often lacking these days. Sad yes, but right in the scheme of things somehow.
ReplyDeleteMy husband never got the fact that here is where I was to be. Buried
DeleteYour comment resonates with me in so many ways. I think I understand that deep-seated, unalterable pain.
DeleteThat's it...I have no words of wisdom, except that I know your presence on the earth has been invaluable to many other humans, including me.
It sounds desolate.
ReplyDeleteMy lovely Mum in Laws funeral was in October and on the day the rain decided to lash it down as though someone had turned on a hosepipe over the whole of Peebles.
Everyone stood stoically around the graveside, some under umberellas, some not. The people from the hospital across the road in wheelchairs with their nurses valiantly trying to shelter them from the deluge, but determined to stay.
Those of us that went to the wake peeled off our sodden wet coats as soon as we got there and sat steaming gently for the next couple of hours.
Nicely written sue
DeleteJames Guthrie's A Highland Funeral is one of my favourite paintings. A funeral on a dark winter's day has something of an extra sombreness to it.
ReplyDeleteI've just looked it up.
ReplyDeleteVery powerful especially the light
I saw it in the flesh in the Kelvingrove Gallery and Museum when I visited Glasgow last year. It really is a very powerful painting. I stood and looked at it for ages. (The museum is worth a visit if you ever go to Glasgow).
DeleteI always think the weather for a funeral should never be sunny and bright it should reflect the mood and be sombre and grey.
ReplyDeleteDare I say, but it sounded like the perfect day for a funeral. In the small Welsh village where I lived, there was a 'Primitive Brethren' chapel (built mostly of corrugated iron). I wouldn't have dared attend a funeral there!
ReplyDeletePlenty of winter funerals here too John - winter always carries off a few souls.
ReplyDeleteSounds like a scene in a movie!
ReplyDeleteLordy, John. Your telling of this sad tale painted the picture perfectly. You have a way with words, and I pray you are secretly penning a novel in your spare time. I would die with gratitude to read it.
ReplyDeleteThe somber weather for a funeral perfectly suits the mood of the mourners.
ReplyDeleteAs Karla wrote, I also hope you're secretly penning a novel in your spare time.
Hugs!
Rest in peace, Gwyneth.
ReplyDeleteYou give a good description of a moving funeral for a special lady.
ReplyDeleteI attended a Funeral on Tuesday this week.It was grey and rainy and I got a bit lost wandering through a graveyard-some gravestones were huge and several dated 1800s.It was an old neighbour I first met 36 years ago.She was a lovely lady and had been President of a bowling team and a group of the bowling ladies met her coffin at the entrance.I tried not to cry when the music played-Elgars Enigmar variations- she reached 93 years x
ReplyDeleteI remember the funeral of a friend who died too soon (drugs). The service itself was heart rending (her children pointing at the coffin and saying loudly 'Mum is in there). At the graveside snow started to fall and the wind whipped up. All of us agreed that Clair would have loved seeing us so uncomfortable, which somehow made us feel better.
ReplyDeleteMy mum was 56 when she died and I felt numb standing at her graveside as she had just been placed in the ground.The priest said his words-Immediately it seemed,my aunt,mum's sister in law said to dad's cousin quite loudly " where's the toilet" we laughed and they hurried off together down the hill.My mum would have laughed too x
ReplyDeleteLovely turn of phrase in the funeral description John.
ReplyDeleteMy youngest brother was 44 when we buried him in December. It was cold and bitter.
ReplyDeleteR.I.P Gwyneth.
ReplyDeleteCold and sad.
ReplyDeleteA summer funeral can be emotional too. Summer is the time when you expect people to be full of life and in their element and not taken from us.
ReplyDeleteAren't most people cremated in the U.K. now? I understood that a burial was unusual.
ReplyDeleteHi JanF. Many older people have "family plots" in graveyards which were bought years ago. Our family have one which although it's now almost full with four people in it has just room for more recent funerals that have been cremations, having their ashes buried in the family plot.
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