I went to a funeral last week, to remember the father of a friend I had not seen in a long time. I hadn't seen him in so long that it seems funny to refer to him as a friend here, but it would seem funnier still to refer to him as a former friend. I am reminded of one of my favourite James Taylor songs, Places in my Past. Looking for a clip to illustrate my post with, all I could find was one of an earnest man in a baseball cap named Dodie1024 singing it sweetly as a dedication to all of his long lost friends. I don't know, I just seem to sing these songs and say I'm sorry for the friends I used to know. It's oddly moving. Or just a bit sad. I can't decide which.
I don't recall any falling out with this friend I used to know. We went to college and lost touch. He took up hockey and cricket. I took up smoking. I heard he got married. I don't know if he's heard anything of my life since school. I'm too embarrassed by my teenage self to reintroduce myself to him as an adult.
I got word of his father's death on the morning of the funeral itself. I'd rather have gone to his removal the night before - a shorter service and a single file up the aisle to shake hands and offer sympathies. It's easier, when you've lost touch, to stand in an orderly queue and wait your turn. I felt it might be arrogant somehow to approach him outside. "Isn't the point to let him know you're here?" asked the Jaffa Cake, who'd been dragged along for moral support (and as physical proof of my success in the form of a beautiful beardy man). I thought about it and decided that no, it wasn't.
I spent the hour of the funeral trying not to cry for the father of this friend I used to know, trying not to think about some day losing my own parents and instead thinking about all the time I'd spent in that church as a child. There are photos of me on the church lawn with my parents and grandparents, dressed in a white watermarked taffeta dress my mother had made for my communion day. "It's ballet length" I'd boasted to my classmates, thinking I'd be decked out in a tutu. I look serious, and freckled. I sang the psalm that day, Sé an Tiarna m'Aoire. I misunderstood the words and sang sé an Tiarna Muire, as an ode to the Virgin Mary. The choir sang it after communion at the funeral and I felt the same panic rising in my throat as I felt standing in the pulpit that day, reaching for the high note in cuireann sé ina luí mé. To calm myself, I concentrated on the ornate plasterwork behind the altar. I'd done it as a child too, imagining it to be made of icing.
Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The priest concluded the rite by quoting Matthew. No talk of going on to a better place, of sitting at the right hand of the Father. And in my best Mrs. Doyle voice, I thought "how right you are, Father, how right you are."
I don't recall any falling out with this friend I used to know. We went to college and lost touch. He took up hockey and cricket. I took up smoking. I heard he got married. I don't know if he's heard anything of my life since school. I'm too embarrassed by my teenage self to reintroduce myself to him as an adult.
I got word of his father's death on the morning of the funeral itself. I'd rather have gone to his removal the night before - a shorter service and a single file up the aisle to shake hands and offer sympathies. It's easier, when you've lost touch, to stand in an orderly queue and wait your turn. I felt it might be arrogant somehow to approach him outside. "Isn't the point to let him know you're here?" asked the Jaffa Cake, who'd been dragged along for moral support (and as physical proof of my success in the form of a beautiful beardy man). I thought about it and decided that no, it wasn't.
I spent the hour of the funeral trying not to cry for the father of this friend I used to know, trying not to think about some day losing my own parents and instead thinking about all the time I'd spent in that church as a child. There are photos of me on the church lawn with my parents and grandparents, dressed in a white watermarked taffeta dress my mother had made for my communion day. "It's ballet length" I'd boasted to my classmates, thinking I'd be decked out in a tutu. I look serious, and freckled. I sang the psalm that day, Sé an Tiarna m'Aoire. I misunderstood the words and sang sé an Tiarna Muire, as an ode to the Virgin Mary. The choir sang it after communion at the funeral and I felt the same panic rising in my throat as I felt standing in the pulpit that day, reaching for the high note in cuireann sé ina luí mé. To calm myself, I concentrated on the ornate plasterwork behind the altar. I'd done it as a child too, imagining it to be made of icing.
Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. The priest concluded the rite by quoting Matthew. No talk of going on to a better place, of sitting at the right hand of the Father. And in my best Mrs. Doyle voice, I thought "how right you are, Father, how right you are."
