Ashes to ashes

It was a small ceremony to mark John's passing nearly 10 weeks after his death. It went well. The  weather was good and by some hard work his house was made to feel alive again. I'm not sure a very coherent picture of the man emerged but there were enough similarities and differences in the different experiences of his life and parts of his life to both challenge and unite.

Towards the end of the afternoon Johns' ashes were scattered in a number of locations. It seemed a long time from when I picked them up from the undertaker and strangely prosaic. I read my piece, not without some misgiving. 


JGA
 
21st October 1921 -  26th February 2016
 
He led a long life
And a good life.
And he was thankful for it.
Even when he lost his beloved Maiala,
His last refuge,
He came to see Glendale
As his home
And his place of safety,
Love and warmth.
 
He didn’t want to go gently
into that dark night.
Oh no. No. Not at all.
He wanted to live on
And outlast death.
But death in the end could wait no longer.
 
Firebrand that he was
He cherished the thought
Of a message from Her Majesty
On his one hundredth birthday.
He did receive a letter
From a Lady-in-Waiting,
A Mary Morrison, no less
From Balmoral Castle.
For that he was grateful.
And tickled pink.
 
The motto on the Coat of Arms was
Nemo me impune lacessit
Which seemed quite fitting for John,
‘No one provokes me with impunity.’
He did have a certain fierceness.
 
Of course, as in all lives,
There were complications.
And he faced more than his fair share
Of stark and awful tragedy.
Yet he was wise enough
To know that he had not
Always done as well as he thought he might.
But it would be a fool
Who’d cast the first stone.
 
He lived his last years
With great dignity and gratitude,
Despite the long nights
Waiting in his chair
For morning’s light to come;
Despite the long days
Watching the cows and the walkers
Cross and recross
The headland over the way.
 
‘The birds, Fergie’,
he’d say,
‘Fly right at the house,
And then, whoop, fly up over it.’
Again and again,
He’d say.
 
He at times wondered
What it was all for,
His eyes glistening
In the fading light of a winter afternoon.
But he kept his appetite for life
And his deep singing voice
Until the very end.
 
He led a long life
And a good life
And cantankerous and
stubborn though he was,
He was thankful for it all
And grateful to all those
Who helped to see him through,
And held his hand,
And made those endless cups of tea.
 
For someone who felt he
Had so little left to give
He gave a lot
And he gave with great good spirit
And a true generosity of the heart.
 
He led a long life
And a good life.
And I am thankful to
Have shared
(perhaps more intensely
than I bargained for)
In a small part of it.
Long may his spirit live on.