Today was my twin sister Caroline?s funeral and I seem to have been doing things on automatic pilot today, saying the right things, doing the right things and trying hard to fit in with Mum and Dad?s idea of how funerals should be done. Several times in the day I have had to grit my teeth when something was done that was so against what Caroline had wanted that it all felt like some horrible parody of a funeral. None of her favourite hymns where sung and all the mourners that Mum and Dad had invited were dressed in black (Caroline hated black and so all her friends came in bright clothes)
My part of the service went OK but all the time it felt as if I was just an actor playing a role. I couldn?t be talking about my Caroline!
It seems almost unbelievable that only five weeks ago Caroline and I had our last Saturday lunch together. It was our usual joyful reunion and there was no hint of the cancer that was to kill her so quickly. Tragically not long afterwards I got a call from Caroline to say that she was in hospital for tests and the same week I sat with her when she was told that she only had a few weeks to live. It was just three weeks from this initial diagnosis to her death.
I know many of you here today need no introduction to Caroline?s life story as you may already feel very much a part of it. As I look down the chapel I can see her family gathered together from all corners of the country to celebrate her life but I can also see friends from her school and university days, friends from the solicitors? practice where she worked and friends from the small town where she spent the last three years of her life.
Caroline and I spent 13 years in the same school and another three years at the same university. Even at University it was a very rare event if we went a whole week without meeting up for a canteen meal or just a chat. We also shared the heartache of ending long-term romances in our third year ? a heartache that some feel she never really got over but which I feel showed Caroline at her thoughtful and compassionate best.
After university we both managed to find jobs. These were far away enough from the family home that we could justify moving out but close enough to our parents, and each other, for regular contact to be maintained. An ideal solution really.
Caroline never found her ?Mr Right? a fact that will always surprise me but she had a wide circle of friends of all ages. Friends who gave her much pleasure. We used to meet for Saturday or Sunday lunch every three weeks and these meetings were very special for both of us.
Caroline was a star, she was my star and we are all diminished by her death.
May she rest in peace.
Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I, and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other
That we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes
We enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me,
Let my name be ever the household word that
It always was.
Let it be spoken without effort,
Without the trace of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolutely unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am
Out of sight? I am but waiting for you
For an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner .
All is well.
There were lots and lots of familiar faces from our past and some friends came over 200 miles to offer their support. The wake was at a local hotel and almost everybody from the funeral came along which was nice. Almost at the end Dad dropped the bombshell that he and Mum would like to be alone tomorrow (Saturday) to mourn ?their? daughter. Alone as in I am not invited. Luckily Mum speedily vetoed the idea but it did seem a cruel thing for him to have said!