It seems a bit strange that I should kick off my blogging life with this sad little piece.
I have just got back from a funeral. The star was a lady that I didn’t know nearly well enough. She had the great misfortune to suffer a stroke at the far too early age of 54. She had managed to do a fair amount with her life, including a very happy marriage, several small businesses and even a book about quilting, which it turned out was one of her main passions.
As I am part of our liberal Jewish Synagogue’s Cheverat Kaddisha team I had the unhappy duty last night of helping to ritually cleanse her body, and at the end we placed her carefully in her coffin wrapped in a quilt. It was only during the funeral that I realised the significance of that, and was really pleased that she was resting in her own handiwork.
Funerals can be either very sad, or rather jolly. This one fell in the middle as she was too young to die, but on the other hand she had managed to have a fairly useful, and it seems quite enjoyable life. Most of us at the funeral had only really touched on the last part of her life, when after the death of her husband she joined us in the Liberal Synagogue, and in fact went through a conversion process. This is a bit unusual, as the Jewish connection was through the husband, who was dead by the time she did this. Of course it is now too late to ask, but why didn’t she do it when he was alive?
Having converted myself over 30 years ago I am always very sceptical about people who convert to Judaism for no particular reason. I did it for the very mundane reason that I wanted to get married. I was also living in Israel at the time, so it was for me a natural step. I have never regretted that step, and today still count myself in with the chosen people. I have never embraced the more spiritual aspects of religion, and will be very surprised if there really is someone up there who will greet me as I race through the pearly gates, or alternatively hand out my lifelong punishment for a life that has not been heaped in sin, but hasn’t really been much help to anyone else.
The best joke that I heard at the funeral come from Merrilyn. As we stood together at the end, she said ruefully that she was really looking forward to her own funeral, as she will be lying down, and not standing up for hours nursing a sore back!
Standing at her funeral I was very sorry that I hadn’t made more of an effort to be friends with Angii. She sounded like she was a lot of fun, and someone who could have enriched my life. So there you are – two morals to this story:
Take up every opportunity of friendship that comes your way
You can die any day, so make the most of it!
