Sunday 26 February 2023

In Memoriam

 

This image turned up for me on Facebook one day this week. I hope I'm not infringing on any copyright by re-posting it. (If I am, I'm probably not the first...) 

Friday was the day for my friend G's funeral, held in her church in Karlstad. I'd have wanted to be there; but did not feel up to the journey - in winter weather and all.

I sent the image at the top to her husband. He texted me back the title of a poem that was going to be read at the funeral (then in Swedish translation). I looked it up online and found it to be very much in the same spirit.

Death is nothing at all, by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1928)

Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that 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 an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? 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 round the corner.

All is well. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

(Copied from Wikipedia)

I moved to Karlstad to study (three terms of secretary college, to begin with) in 1975 (20 years old). In my spare time I joined a youth gospel choir in a church situated only a few minutes walk from where I lived the first year. That's where I got to know G - and made many other friends as well. As things turned out, I stayed nearly 10 years in K-d (working and studying); and even after I moved away - while G stayed, and got married - we remained close friends. We continued to exchange long letters and phone calls, and also visited each other now and then. Later we switched  to emails instead of letters. As we got older still, and various health issues increased for both of us, we met less often in person. Text communication got shorter too (mostly via a phone app the last few years) - but we still kept in touch. The last time we met "in real life" was last summer, when I was in K-d on holiday with my brother. I'm so thankful we managed to arrange that.

8 comments:

  1. Indeed, you must be so glad you got to meet G last year. I know how that feels, having met my friend George only four weeks or so before he died so suddenly last summer.
    The poem you copied here was read by Steve's sisters at his funeral, now more than 13 years ago. They chose it and read it; I admired them so much for that, as I would not have been able to do this at the funeral.

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    1. I can well imagine reading that text aloud could become too emotional. I don't know who did the reading at my friend's funeral.

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  2. That's a lovely poem, sorry for the loss of your friend.

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  3. I am sorry to hear that you've lost a friend, and are not able to attend the funeral.
    That poem was read at both my in-laws funerals - it seems a very popular one.
    No funeral for me, I've made it quite clear that I want people to remember me as I was alive, and not in a box destined for the flames. A quick impersonal dispatch.

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    1. I'd never heard it before, Carol. I've not been to all that many funerals but those I've attended in later years (including for my own parents, which were coffin burials as that was what my dad wanted) I've found helpful for 'closure' and for sharing memories with family and friends.

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  4. The longer poem says the exact same thing as the short quote and they both are absolutely perfect and I’m going to copy them and keep them for when I need them. I am so glad that you had her in your life and I know that she was glad to keep in touch with you. You have just proved by reading this that what I saw on TV yesterday is true. They said that people no longer have the relationships that they had in the past because we made friends at work we made friends at church we made friends at the gatherings that we went to and now we have to come stay at home and contact via the Internet. It said that the reason young people are not meeting each other and getting married and falling in love is because they don’t go anywhere to meet anyone. We have lost contact with the outside world except through the computer. I really am glad that you posted this it is giving me much things things to think about

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    1. Thanks Sandra. I'm glad this post meant something to you even though you never met my friend - or even me, for that matter! ;-) Yes, our ways of meeting people and relating to each other and keeping in touch have changed; but at the same time, I'm sure I'm still in touch with more friends from the past today than I would have been without the internet (Facebook) - plus I've made several new friends via the internet (blogging) whom I would otherwise never have come across! Whilst what I may have missed by not being present at this or that gathering that I never went to, I'll never know...

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