One arrives, another departs

Published: Fri, 01/24/20

Last Thursday I took the train into Hull to visit the Registry office. It was time to register the birth of our daughter in the name of Iduna Charlotte Butcher, so she is now an officially real person with a certificate to prove it. About two hours earlier and over two hundred miles away my sister was registering the death of our mother who had died in the early evening of New Years day. My mother had been living in a care home for the previous thirteen months and on the 14th of December there was a Christmas party and apparently she had joined in and had a good time. Later that evening she was found collapsed in the corridor. It seems that she suffered a major stroke from which she did not recover consciousness. She was ninety three and had been affected by dementia for some time. In fact my mother managed to live in eleven decades, starting with the 1920s and managing about nineteen hours of the 2020s.

My mother’s funeral is next Tuesday at the Leatherhead Crematorium and I have agreed to deliver her Eulogy at the service. I am still working out what to say which will sum up her life in five to seven minutes, the ceremony is strictly limited to a total of thirty minutes. I also gave the eulogy for my father at his funeral in 2001, which seems like a long time ago now, which indeed it was.

When I have told people that our daughter arrived and my mother suffered a fatal stroke within days of one another a frequent response has been, one in, one out. Maybe just a coincidence, on the other hand the sadness of losing a mother is mitigated by the joy of having a new baby to love and care for. I am also reminded of stanza 72 of the Havamal, better a son , or a daughter as in my case, born late in life as memorial stones are rarely erected except by kinfolk. It has been good working with my brother and sister to arrange my mother’s funeral. At the event itself there will be a good turnout of grand children as well. (Although we have decided that Iduna is a bit young to make the journey, we will tell her about her grandmother when she is old enough to understand.)

I am not sure what kind of memorial we will have for my mother. Maybe a bench by the lake on Epsom Common, a spot my mother particularly liked me to take her for a walk and to watch the ducks and geese. The memorial which really matters is simply being remembered by your loved ones and that will happen for my mother as it has for my father. Iduna will never have met her paternal grandparents, but we will still do our best to ensure that she does still know them. Again, the Havamal puts it well in stanza 76,

‘Cattle die, kinsmen die, you will die the same way, but a good reputation never dies for the one who earns it well.’ (Jackson Crawford Translation.)

I have got to get through the next week or so, then life can return to something as near normal as it can be with a young baby. Looking ahead I have updated the calendar page with some events for this year, starting with some training on the 7th of March in Beverley, check out the schedule here http://iceandfire.org/calendar.html

regards

Graham

PS There is also another USA seminar at the end of May in Illinois which Allen Reed is organising. Please see here https://www.iceandfire.org.uk/usamay2020.html