Another Rose

In the courtyard. 

Life is still surreal. I woke up quite tearful which lasted until mid morning. Not helped by yet another screwed system. The funeral director had advised I might need to collect the medical certificate from the surgery so I phoned first thing to check it was ready. 82 attempts to get through! The receptionist informed me that they had not even received the verification of death from the district nurses and needed that for the doctor to write the certificate. Another call, and true to form I was told they would ‘get on to the nurses now’. I’ve heard nothing since. 

Liam and Daniel popped to the shop to get some bits to make us a lunch before heading to the funeral directors at 2:30. And I took delivery of two beautiful flower arrangements. Thank you P&M and Stalker and the team. 

The first thing she asked for was of course the medical certificate. I explained, she phoned the surgery. They still haven’t received the verification. We are supposed to register the death within 5 days, and still no medical certificate of death. The surgery promised to chase them, but it will still be Monday at the earliest. I forgot to mention in my blip last night (head is a muddle) that both of us are on the organ donors register, and although they couldn’t use anything because of the cancer, they can use his eyes. One eye provides enough cornea to enable 5 people to see. It was a lengthy call yesterday answering some very weird questions…..had he been bitten by a bat within the last six months! but we got there in the end and a retrieval team were dispatched to the funeral directors where they successfully retrieved the eyes yesterday. 

Given the absence of the certificate, we can only provisionally book the date for the funeral, but we’ve done that and are keeping fingers crossed. Many arrangements discussed and agreed on and we left feeling happy with what we had decided, albeit a mammoth expenditure! 

From there James and Daniel headed home. It’s James weekend with Mollie, and she is struggling to come to terms with never seeing granddad again. Liam has stayed on another night, and I’m grateful for that. Tomorrow we will go to the local pub/hotel and check that they will be able to accommodate the ‘do’ after the service and then on to order some flowers for the coffin. We are just having our flowers and then asking for donations to the RNLI, a favourite charity of B’s. Liam will then head home and it will just be me and Dog for the rest of the day. My brother in law and nephew are planning to visit on Sunday. My own brother, is still testing positive after 10 days and very unhappy about it!

We decided this morning to put an announcement on AB’s Facebook page and we each then shared that to our own. Liam linked to instagram and James did a post on Linked In. Oh the messages. We have laughed and cried at them all day. The memories from people not heard of in ages. I’ve always known B was special, but to hear so many other people relating how he touched their lives, in business, in music, as a family and friends man has been humbling. I am grateful for every one of them.