Time passes, we are mortal. Swifty (Derek) was only seven years older than me — but he caught pneumonia not long ago, and that was it. Today was his funeral. Too many people now who have featured on here who have died.
There are, by now, a number of ‘digital ghosts’ that haunt this blog. I know of, for sure, seven people who have appeared on here who have since died: both of Clare’s grans, our former neighbour Richard, a professorial colleague at work, and three friends, of which Lynn was the most recent, passing away last month. Her last appearance on here was on 30th May. It’s possibly the only one, although I would be surprised if she didn’t also turn up in the background of some other shots: as, technically, she does here.
So what do the rest of us do….. A wake is the party that they hold for you, the one time they know you can’t come. And then we move on. Eventually everyone depicted on here will be dust, including me: I’m only two years younger than Lynn. Whether I will get the chance to let you know I’m on the way out, is as yet undetermined.
On 2nd June my aunt, Anne Morecroft, my father’s sister, died of heart failure — may she rest in peace. Today was her funeral, first at Dukinfield crematorium in Tameside, Manchester, and then the wake afterwards at Stalybridge Methodist church where I took this picture of my other aunt and uncle, Celia and Philip Hall (my mother’s younger brother). That’s the thing about funerals isn’t it: while regretting the reason these events start to become the only time you see your extended family. Should it be that way? Probably not, but I doubt I am the only person for whom it is true. Best wishes to them all, and families everywhere.
Being 42 