We went down to Cork on Saturday to bury my aunt’s ashes. It was a much deferred event and in the end this weekend didn’t really suit because a) Mr. Waffle and I had a party on Friday night; b) Daniel was staying out at a friend’s house to do a Friday 13th horror marathon and had to be picked up from there on the way to Cork and was up until 5 am being jump scared; c) my sister was enjoying a rolling crisis at work and ongoing illness and d) she and her partner were moving out of their house the following Monday to make room for the builders who are moving in until Christmas.
At the party on Friday , an old friend of mine from Cork asked me how Aunty Pat was and I had to say, not great, we’re interring her ashes tomorrow. I felt a bit sorry for him but there you are.
Anyway, we got to Cork, we got to the graveyard and we did it. It was a short ceremony and it’s pretty surprising to see how small the box of ashes is. The gravedigger knew Aunty Pat and had done some gardening work for her in the past, so that was actually quite nice.
We went for lunch afterwards which was not entirely successful because it was vegetarian which not everyone loved, Daniel was exhausted, my sister was sick and it was so loud that it was difficult to hear anything. Alas. Before we went to the graveyard, my sister had sustained us with a snack including a Cornish pasty from Marks and Spencer’s. “Look Mum,” said Daniel excitedly, “an English empanada.” Good point.
At lunch we were trying to tell Aunty Pat stories over the din. My brother said – which was news to me – that she loved rugby and when he was a kid, he used to go into her house to watch matches. Mr. Waffle and I went round to her house – where my brother is now living – that evening to watch Ireland play the All Blacks and, honestly, with one thing and another, it would have been nice if the Irish team had won. But no, it was that kind of weekend.
I feel a bit sad but I guess it’s good that she’s interred there with her uncles and aunts, brother and grandparents (her parents are elsewhere). And, as they say, she had a good innnings. In fact, she was pretty much perfect and driving about until her late 80s. She was 94 when she died and living at home. Things could have been a lot worse.
I think, sometimes, hard though it is, things are so much easier if people die in the order in which they were born…(I’ve thought about this a lot..my father died very young, long before his parents. It was so hard)
Sounds like Aunty Pat did…good on her, and may she rest is peace.
Thanks Suzy – I think you are definitely right about death order.