funeral

Day-old lambs were in the fields and the sun was filtering through the stormy clouds as we buried Grandpa.

The humanist ceremony celebrated his life, and words from Grandpa's children; my dad and aunt, added personal memories and fitting words to the farewell.

His burial, in a wood above the Penrith cemetry, overlooking stunning Cumbrian countryside was moving, and we added our own handfuls of earth to the grave and thought our own sad thoughts before moving away.

Funerals can be sentimental and somehow superficial occasions, but this one was honest, fitting. The impressive turnout showed how many lives he'd touched.

Eating sandwiches in the village hall and watching Grandpa's great granddaughter playing on the slide, I was grateful that he'd lived so long, and that when his time had come, he'd gone peacefully.

Don't lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall,
Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,
Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold,
Little seeds investigate, and tender leaves unfold
There, kindly and affectionately plant a native tree
To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.
The roots will not disturb me as they wend their peaceful way
To build the fine and bountiful from closure and decay
To seek their small requirements so that when their work is done
I'll be tall and standing strongly in the beauty of the sun.

Woodland Burial, by Pam Ayers