It was as the saying goes 'a good turn out', people we couldn't imagine showed up, people some of whom we hadn't seen for years, or in the case of colleagues from his days in television, we had never met.
My dad was a staunch atheist, we found an amazing non-denominational celebrant to carry out the service and she was spot on, he would have wholly approve. My fifteen year old niece sang a solo, quite how she managed it I will never know but any of us who had managed to hold it together up to that point lost a grip listening to her angelic voice singing unaccompanied through her own threatening tears. My brother, despite his nerves read the eulogy magnificently, a concoction of amusing tales from each of us, his children, one memory each that a few days ago he gave us two minutes to think of and relay to him.
There were tears, there was laughter, there was love and there was much loud and funky jazz, music my obsessively jazz loving, bohemian dad had chosen himself before he died. A family who in grief came together closer than even usually we are, grown men cried openly and myself, my mum and my siblings gave up any vestige of our stiff upper lips as we listened and remembered a very, very special and individual man who was summed up in this short Indian 'prayer' that was included in the service;
Cry for me a little
Think of me sometimes
But not too much.
Think of me now and again
As I was in life
At some moments it's pleasant to recall
But not for long.
Leave me in peace
And I shall leave you in peace
And while you live
Let your thoughts be with the living.
Yup, if a funeral can be described as amazing, this one certainly was..... and I'll bet not too many coffins carry a floral tribute including some rather large cacti!
