A Memorial Ceremony

Perhaps this should be called a Memorial Service. It was held yesterday in a chapel that is part of St Mathias church, conducted by the lady vicar whose first name is Joan -- I don't know her family name but she is a sweet and kindly lady. She conducted a short memorial service honouring Wendy. Rebecca and Jonathan came with me. I think it was probably organized by Wendy's friend Shiela Carr and her husband Peter. There were some 20-25 women present, almost all, perhaps all, members of the Family Life group of which Wendy has been part ever since we came to live in Ottawa 41 years ago. By that time, 41 years ago, I had renounced my Christian faith -- I could not believe the basic tenets, the concept of the Trinity, rising from the dead, life everlasting, nor any of the rest of it -- and Wendy was in the process of following in my footsteps into atheism. But she remained a member of the family life group because of firm friendships with its members (and I venture to suggest, closer adherence to the values and behaviour expected of good Christians than some members of the group). It was a simple yet moving ceremony: a few readings, including the 23rd Psalm, no hymns, an opportunity for a few reminiscences, and for me to announce the Celebration of her life that we are planning for Friday February 11, 2011. After the ceremony we sat at tables for six to eat a sandwich and cake lunch, where I noticed that one variety of brownie looked and tasted very like the most popular of the cookies that Wendy used to make when our kids were young. It was the one that my father called "Compressed haggis" -- a name by which it's been known in our family ever since.

Today I was visited by Lianne Johnston from the ALS Society. She called at my request to collect leftover supplies that might well be useful to another person with ALS. I suppose this was in a way part of the process of letting-go. Last night there was another part of this process: Rebecca and I went through several boxes of winter gloves, hats, scarves, etc, selecting a few to keep, depositing most in a box to go to the Food Bank, which collects warm winter clothing as well as food items for the needy people of Ottawa. So that was Letting Go -- but the memories those warm winter gloves evoke haven't gone away, and never will. I'll have more to say about Letting Go when I've had more experience of it. One thing I won't let go, and will tell if other family members don't tell before I get a chance to say it at the Celebration on February 11, are a few anecdotes about Wendy's occasional oddities and eccentricities: the time she stormed out of our home on a freezing winter morning because each of us in turn had said we didn't want "again" or "yet again" our favourite Edinburgh winter Saturday lunch of pancakes; and the time, in our first Ottawa winter, we went blundering off into Lanark County looking for what must have been mythical snow sculptures (this was a year or two before the winter carnival was firmly established as an annual event in Ottawa). I think we will be able to muster half a dozen or more such anecdotes -- although one or two of them will require very careful use of words and expert phraseology to be suitable for use in mixed company. More of this topic anon.