The intellectual snob in me curses Richard Curtis for using that most apt poem 'Funeral Blues' in Four Weddings and a Funeral, introducing Auden's words to a generation of snot-nosed literature dodgers whose only experience of 'bewdiful words' prior to the film came from Hallmark cards and folk art.
On the other hand, had I not watched that movie repeatedly in my own snot-nosed, literature-dodging teens (my juvenile self thoroughly appreciating the first few minutes dialogue containing only 'fuck' and it's derivatives), I may never have come across it. For even with my EXTENSIVE English Lit education (cough* easy marks *splutter), I never came across it elsewhere... not even in the Seven Centuries of Verse that was required reading for English 101. Nor have I ever come across a better way to describe the experience of a mourner.
So hot on the heels of the death of Daniel came the passing of my friend Nicky on the 23rd of December last year. At her funeral I learnt that her battle with cancer had been going on for nine and a half years... which equated to a quarter of her life. That is too much for one little body to hack... and she was exhausted and had only optimism fumes left to run on. It is not that she had given up: it's that she was as aware as anybody who knew her story that every day left in her life was going to be a fight. The last time I saw her she was weakened but exuberant, rattling the front door impatiently as she waited for me to make the trek from the living room to let her in for tea and turkish delight. Her speech was not entirely back to normal from her previous drastic treatments for tumours in her brain, but her personality was all there in all it's affection, excitement and warmth.
Her very good man said that by the time she lost the fight, the overwhelming feeling was relief, but the world has lost a very lovely, funny, sweet, kind, quirky lady and I'm glad I could call her my friend.
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