The first day back to work after the Xmas break found me attending the funeral of the mother of one of my sisters oldest friends. France's Ogden was in her eighties and was loved, mourned and buried by a lifetime's collection of family and friends. The weather was shockingly foul, with us having to wait 20 mins standing in the church before following the coffin, as the storm raged outside at 11am. It was a bleak and for boding start to the first working day of the year. 'The heavens had to open to let her in you see....' I whispered to the daughter Jane.
Yesterday my niece, Rachel Renouf , was gathered at around 5am. She was 36 years old and had been battling leukaemia for 18 months with the courage and conviction that was something to watch. Rachel came to see her grandfather for lunch about four months ago. Having been one of so many uncles and aunts I had become rather distant. At that lunch though, I saw an amazing and inspiring young women. We talked about her son, her life, life in general, fear, fear of dying and hopes for the future. So moving was her honesty and courage, I asked her if she would share he story with others by way of an interview in the press.
That never happened and I am comfortable with it as the story is so searingly honest and personal it didnt need to be told in the papers, though Rachel would have been pleased if it had given some one hope.
Later in the day, I took my 88 yr old a father to be with them. We had a few hours with her mother and father and all of her 8 brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces and her own son Dylan, six years old. I know something of grief, having lost my mother at 18 years old - that was over 30 years ago and I had forgotten it's depth and profundity. We sat in a group forming a mutual outpouring of feeling and emotion. The exhaustion, disbelief, sunken eyes, pain, bewilderment and fear. The spontaneous embracing and hugging. The questions. The need for understanding, trying to make sense and the fear. The Feeling of utter loss in people so young.
I was more proud of my family than ever before....raw in their grief the showed love and compassion, vulnerability and courage.
Music was played in her honour, songs that she had written or sung, recorded onto myspace. Impulsively her six year old boy stood up and took to the floor and started to dance. He danced, raptured in the music, with skill and verve...passionately and full of life. We each marvelled at the picture of his mummy that we saw in the flash of his eyes, the smile and the energy and the cheek. We were being visited by his mother and we were each transfixed.
Pray for this family, each and every one of them as they come to terms with their loss. Their lives are changed for ever. Rachel will never be forgotten.
The funeral is ahead of us and I know it will be a celebration as well..
Yesterday my niece, Rachel Renouf , was gathered at around 5am. She was 36 years old and had been battling leukaemia for 18 months with the courage and conviction that was something to watch. Rachel came to see her grandfather for lunch about four months ago. Having been one of so many uncles and aunts I had become rather distant. At that lunch though, I saw an amazing and inspiring young women. We talked about her son, her life, life in general, fear, fear of dying and hopes for the future. So moving was her honesty and courage, I asked her if she would share he story with others by way of an interview in the press.
That never happened and I am comfortable with it as the story is so searingly honest and personal it didnt need to be told in the papers, though Rachel would have been pleased if it had given some one hope.
Later in the day, I took my 88 yr old a father to be with them. We had a few hours with her mother and father and all of her 8 brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews and nieces and her own son Dylan, six years old. I know something of grief, having lost my mother at 18 years old - that was over 30 years ago and I had forgotten it's depth and profundity. We sat in a group forming a mutual outpouring of feeling and emotion. The exhaustion, disbelief, sunken eyes, pain, bewilderment and fear. The spontaneous embracing and hugging. The questions. The need for understanding, trying to make sense and the fear. The Feeling of utter loss in people so young.
I was more proud of my family than ever before....raw in their grief the showed love and compassion, vulnerability and courage.
Music was played in her honour, songs that she had written or sung, recorded onto myspace. Impulsively her six year old boy stood up and took to the floor and started to dance. He danced, raptured in the music, with skill and verve...passionately and full of life. We each marvelled at the picture of his mummy that we saw in the flash of his eyes, the smile and the energy and the cheek. We were being visited by his mother and we were each transfixed.
Pray for this family, each and every one of them as they come to terms with their loss. Their lives are changed for ever. Rachel will never be forgotten.
The funeral is ahead of us and I know it will be a celebration as well..