In Remembrance of James
James
Reflection given at ICUJP, April 15th, 2022 – Good Friday
Almost exactly three months ago, on Sunday, January 16th to be precise, I awoke to an email from my 90-year old father that I shall never, ever forget.
It began with these words, “Hello Paul, I’m afraid that we have very bad news about James, he died in bed last night.” The email went on, “...The whole business is a total nightmare and as yet it has not sunk in, and we have been unable to comprehend. We are completely devastated by this tragic news as you are bound to be as well... It’s just a frightful bad dream which we will never get over. Love from us both, Deac.”
Deac is an abbreviation of a nickname I gave my father more than half a century ago: that of Deacon, itself a derivative of Archdeacon – the original name being assigned in response to my mother, Anne, strangely calling my father “Archie” after her own father, Archibald. Anyway, “Deacon” or “the Deac” has stuck with everyone ever since. My mother, no less affectionately despite the connotations, has similarly always been known as “Ratty” or “the Rat” after a character from a well-loved children’s book series by Beatrix Potter; with “Ratty Anne” being one of the animal characters and the wife of another rat called “Samuel Whiskers”.
Ratty and Deacon surrounded by my father’s art
James, the one who died, was my brother and only sibling; and my parents’ eldest son.
He had died aged 65 without known cause just three months into his well-earned retirement, and otherwise completely out of the blue. It was totally unforeseen, and he leaves behind his wife, Saffron, of 26 years and their six children, the youngest of whom is just 13.
In my own 63 years of life it came as the deepest sense of shock and extreme sadness I have yet experienced. Whether or not it has been easier or more difficult having to share this tragic death with both my aged parents still alive I am unable to say.
Within two weeks of receiving this email from my father I had returned to my parents’ home to be at their side, as well as sit out the required 10 days of quarantine before the funeral. This was to take place in a lovely old church in the tiny village of Lurgashall nestled in the depths of the beautiful Sussex Downs of Southern England where my brother had lived with his family for many years; and where he had become an active member of this small community. It is the picture-postcard epitome of rural England with an annual Summer Fete, a cricket pitch on the village green and an old tavern with stone floors, a large open fireplace and low, oak-beamed ceilings. It was all, you might say, an idyllic setting and way of life which only makes it all the more shatteringly sad in the wake of this tragedy which had befallen my family.
St. Laurence Church, Lurgashall
My mother’s 88th birthday, which I was able to celebrate in her company for the first time in decades, took place on the eve of the funeral, an event she was rather dreading. She would need to rise to this difficult occasion and greet people, many of whom she had known for donkey’s years, as we say in England, and others she would be meeting for the first time. It all troubled her ailing heart and in the reception afterwards she needed to retire to a place of semi-seclusion. My father who accompanied her throughout, fortunately being blessed with a stronger constitution and disposition was nonetheless well-advised by my mother at breakfast that morning to put on his diaper, just in case. He duly and sensibly obliged seeing it as a good idea having been caught out a few times recently while shopping in the local supermarket. Old age is never easy, and surely not when bracing oneself for the funeral of one’s eldest son who had died without warning or rational sense.
“Why did it have to be James; why not me?” bemoaned my mother more than once. As it was, she endured the funeral with stoicism and dignity so typical of my mother, the sister of an Admiral and Knight of the Realm who, together, had been raised between the wars by austere Scottish grandparents although she did throw up in the car on the journey home once the challenge of the day was all over and overcome; the next day being spent in bed with a hot water bottle and a decision being made by my father and I that it would be prudent for her to visit the village doctor at the earliest opportunity, which she did.
As funerals go, not by any means – thankfully – am I an expert, it could not have been executed more smoothly or with more spiritual elevation. On a cold Friday in early February the Sun came out to shine and the clouds fully dispersed to reveal a clear blue sparkling sky, as crisp as the morning frost. The tranquility of the ancient church dating back almost 1,000 years and the adjoining graveyard shaded by aged trees where my brother would be laid to his final rest could not have been more serene. The traditional latch gate at the path entrance beneath the old yew trees where the portly funeral director and his accompanying pallbearers each bedecked in morning suits awaited beside the hearse only made it all, so-to-speak, picture perfect. Several mourners arrived early in time for lunch in the village pub called “Noah’s Ark”, where coffee and hot chocolate had been served earlier that morning for the most immediate family members. The church, witness to countless funerals over the centuries, could seat as many as 150 souls but almost twice that number was expected, such was the affection and esteem held for my brother combined with their own shared sense of shock and grief at his most sudden demise.
After more than 30 years in the United States I would be reacquainting myself with family members I had not seen in decades. There had been a calling from all parts of the country and Nature, or God, or the Devas could not have provided a more beautiful day or setting for this sad, yet strangely uplifting day.
The ceremony when it arrived sharply at 2:00 pm was very simple and classically English. Ironically, if not to say mysteriously, my brother as if prompted by some premonition had arranged for his own funeral just a few months before, selecting the hymns he wanted to be sung in addition to purchasing one of the very few remaining plots of land still available for burial in the small graveyard, which was filled with an array of old, moss-covered tomb stones.
St. Laurence Church
As anticipated, the church was packed to the brim with well over 100 others standing outside as familiar hymns rang out, including the ever-popular “Jerusalem” and “I vow to thee my country”. My brother in recent years had taken an active role in the village and church life and was a member of the Parish Council, and as such the ceremony was all the more personal as the female vicar marked the loss of one of their own. James’ Best Man from his wedding 26 years earlier and I gave the eulogies, each covering different aspects of my brother’s well-lived life. Indeed, I quoted his Best Man who had informed me the night before James’ wedding after I had asked him what my brother was like, that “James did not have an unkind thought in his head.” It was profoundly true, and a primary reason as to why so many had travelled so far on this cold Friday in February simply to be there to honor his life. Several hundred more would attend a Memorial Service in London two months later, arranged by his work colleagues for his numerous friends in the City. My brother, at least in material terms, had been highly successful, but far more importantly he attained it all with a goodness and grace, without guile or greed. In a way the trappings of wealth were all unimportant to him. Gentleness and human kindness were how he had lived his life, and the vicar’s remarks relating to James from I Corinthians, Chapter 13 rang profoundly true.
In the aftermath of this apparent tragedy I am glad to say we are all doing remarkably well. Life, after all, goes on.
In short, the primary purpose of this Reflection is to do precisely that. Pause, step back and ponder more deeply and more exquisitely this remarkable earthly experience called life. Death is something none of us can avoid, and the automatic response to birth. Why are we here at all? And what is the purpose and meaning of our existence, presuming that there is an actual purpose, which I profoundly do.
At the same time, it has caused me to reevaluate almost everything. Priorities are changed. When one is so strongly reminded of the impermanence of life, priorities take on a new and different order.
Wealth, and the acquisition of wealth, seems foolhardy. Simplicity, kindness, tolerance and an innate cheerfulness take on a renewed high value. We are here to love one another and more or less nothing else. I believe my brother did that with a humility and ease that go to the very best of being human.
A view of the graveyard
Meanwhile, I have also been reminded of family values, and the legacy that all families have in common: our sense of place, of inter-relatedness, of peculiar yet divine interconnection. It is all indeed a mystery and, seemingly, our simplest solution is to submit to it all. To accept the inevitable fate of death to come at a time not of our own choosing but of God’s; and not to mourn such loss but rather be grateful that it should ever have existed at all. To become more open and throw our heads back, like the Buddha, and laugh out loud and outrageously at the Divine Perfection of everything; and to know that in the Hands of God all is well – Eternally Well – and to Rejoice!
Eulogy to James