There’s nothing like a funeral to help give you a perspective reboot.
A few months ago my dad received news that his brother had become very ill while visiting his sons and their families in Dubai. This began a nightmare time for my uncle, aunt and their family and, with my uncle’s death on Boxing Day, came great grief.
My dad, a very emotional man, has taken this hard and he struggled through the funeral today. He and his brother had been out of touch for a long time but, thankfully, had become close again in the months of my uncle’s illness.
For us ‘kids’ the funeral was a strange affair. My memories of my uncle are 20 years old due to family issues that aren’t anything to do with me. I make no judgement on that – it’s just the way it is. When I met the sons – my cousins I guess – I had difficulty reconciling the grown men before me with the teenage boys of my few memories of them.
But they looked like family.
My brother and I look a lot like our mum, but my wee sister is the double of my dad and, judging from the photo in the arrival hall of the church, my dad and uncle look (looked) very alike.
Meeting his sons was like looking at my sister’s true genetic family. It felt odd to meet these people who were really strangers to me, but who were physically so familiar, because for decades I’d been looking at these features in the face of my beloved sister and father.
The funeral was hard, despite the fact I didn’t really know my uncle properly. It was hard because a coffin brings the preciousness of the limited time we have in this life into sharp relief. It was hard because a wreath that spells out ‘Dad’ tells uncomfortable truths. It was hard because it was impossible not to connect with the family’s grief.
It was hard because we, his wife and children, watched dad’s heart break. Carrying the coffin of his brother, a relationship he’d lost and only recently found.
Good night, Uncle Peter. All the best for the next life.
