Poppets, Polos and Pianos

I've always quite liked a funeral. I think they are quite funny.  There's a huge conflict in us humans about death. We feel we need to both be sad and celebrate someone's life simultaneously, which is, let's face it, impossible. They are conflicting emotions, which can only be funny.

I thought that my father's funeral would overwhelm me with sadness and I wouldn't be able to see the joy, conflict and laughter but I was wrong. I'm not someone to cry in front of people and my family are naturally funny.

We were all nervous: up early, stressing about not being able to find the right cardigan, shoes or whether we had enough tissues. There was anxious biting of lips, fingernails and hair twiddling (and that was just the Long Suffering Husband.) When the cars arrived we all privately wondered if we could do it but kept our heads down, shuffling our feet until we found ourselves sitting inside. As we drove up the hill we marvelled, silently, at the fitness of John, the funeral director, who walked in front of the cars, without stopping, at a speed of about 10 mph.  At the church, we saw there was a queue to get in. The silence was broken as we struggled to recall names.
"Poppet," my sister said.
"Hello, Poppet, how you doing? Haven't seen you for ages." She instructed us how to greet people.
I didn't think I could pull off the 'Poppet' trick.
Mum agreed, "I couldn't call anyone Poppet who was older than about six," she said.
My sister continued to instruct us and we laughed.
We were in a funeral car, behind the hearse with my dad's coffin in, outside the church, laughing about poppets.

Recorded music in the Church has never worked properly for me. I always thought it was some trick to make me use live music; make me practise so that I didn't bring Les (Dawson, whose piano playing I seem to channel) to every school service. For the funeral, we wanted the orchestra to play Children's March but it had to be a recorded version. I had been to the church earlier in the week and we had gone through it, to make sure it worked and everyone was confident. We stood at the back, behind the coffin and waited. I looked up and saw the familiar look of panic, as the technology failed. Usually, when I see that look I get the choir to sing unaccompanied. The vicar apologetically asked me if I would sort it out and just as I started to walk over it sprang into life. I had a sudden panic, as I nearly tripped rushing back to my place, that the piano and music stand weren't ready for the only live bit of music. It was and I was able to regain my composure.

The service was lovely. There were hundreds of people there. The tributes were perfect and even the piano was in tune and seemed to behave better than it normally does.

After the service we went to the crematorium for a quick, private cry, while everyone else went to The Purple Pig for a beer. Funeral cars drive slowly and everyone looks at you. At first, we found the journey difficult. We sat in silence until Mum offered us a polo. Mum likes a polo and it would have been rude not to accept. It is traditional in our family to have a polo sucking competition on long car journeys.

We took it very seriously, poking our tongues out to check at regular intervals. The driver won. On the way back the funeral director tried really hard to equal his employee's acheivement but couldn't beat my sister, who is a world champion polo sucker and still had hers, intact, as we turned onto Limebrook Way, which at funeral car speed was about 45 minutes.

We had laughed and were ready to greet everyone. I even hugged people!
"Hello Poppet, thank you for fighting that dog of a piano and winning," I said to my friend who had accompanied my version of Stardust. We laughed.

Funerals are still funny things and I'm glad about that because life wouldn't be bearable without a little bit of laughter.

Dress Code

When did a dress code for a funeral become a thing?

Obviously, I know that there are traditions about what convention dictates you should wear, which vary from country to country and change over time but in the last few weeks I have been asked (sometimes by strangers) what they should wear on Friday.  My answer is always, "clothes," but I think they want me to be more specific.

In England it all started with the Romans, who would wear dark togas to express their grief.  This continued with most people wearing dark colours as a mark of respect until the Victorians came along and made their rules. In Spain, they wore white. At the end of the Victorian period mourning clothes were a family's outward sign of their grief.  The rules were outlined in household manuals.Women had it hard they had to wear black for a specified length of time , avoid satin, lace  or embroidery and wear dresses or hats trimmed with crepe - a hard scratchy material.  Men were let off much more lightly and would wear their usual suit with black gloves, hatbands and cravats.  Children were not expected to wear mourning clothes.  Widows were expected to wear full mourning for two years and half mourning for another two.  It was a year for parents grandparents and siblings and four weeks for cousins.

I can see why people want to kick back against all those rules.  I've been to funerals where we were told to wear bright clothes, something red or butterflies.  Friday is red nose day, so maybe we should insist on red noses.

However, none of us have any particular desire to tell people what to wear.

It's difficult enough without a particular thing being imposed.  I wanted to wear black.  I wear black all the time, so I should have just been able to open my wardrobe but all my dresses looked tired, like me.  Several trips out and I have found a dress that looks nice and I will wear again.  In Miss Selfridge I got quite excited because I thought I'd found the perfect dress: a dress with pockets. Unfortunately, it had a split to the thigh, which somehow didn't seem like appropriate funeral attire.  The Long Suffering Husband has used the funeral as an excuse to get a new suit.  He has a brown one, which would have been fine but it was a bit snug and he really hankered after a blue suit.  The lady in the shop wasn't too pushy but she was friendly.  She told him that he looked very nice in it, "Are you going somewhere nice, wedding, party?" she asked.
"Funeral," I whispered, not intentionally (it happens when you lose your voice)
"Pardon?" (That's what they all say)
The LSH told her and her brows knitted together.
"Oh? Blue? For a funeral? That's.  I mean. That's. Well, I wouldn't have asked. Normally it's black or charcoal grey. Are you sure, you're allowed to wear blue?"
We assured her it would be fine.
"Have you asked?" She was clearly very concerned about the LSH making a huge social mistake.
"Asked who?" I wondered.
"The relatives." She was certain that we should have checked the dress code.
"Oh," I said
"Darling," the LSH questioned, "Do you think it would be alright if I wore a blue suit to your Dad's funeral?"
I assured him that it would.
The lady briefly stepped back but recovered her composure quickly.
"That's why you've lost your voice," she said, "It'll be the stress."

One of the conversations I'd had with Dad in the last week had been about dress code.  The Youth Orchestra had agreed to do a concert for the Mayor, who was more particular about what the audience should wear than the quality of the music they were to listen to.  He had made quite a big deal out of it and had made comments like, "I know how you ladies like to dress up."  Dad thought this was all quite funny.  He asked me to post two pictures on out committee chat page, which is what he thought we should wear.

I'm not sure it's how he'd interpret a funeral dress code but who knows?