Funerals are funny things.
They're particularly strange when you combine the Freemasons and the Liberal Catholic Church.
Philomena would have loved it.
Some takeaways from today:
- Walking into our temple, where the service was being conducted, I saw the Chief in Charge of organising. My first question, "Where's Philomena?" His answer, "She's in there...and she was early!" We always said she'd be late for her own funeral. Turns out we were wrong.
- Talking to one of the senior masons about our friend, her comments were, "I've been talking to my guides. They let her in up there a week ago." This is the only place you have conversations like this. Mind you, I couldn't feel her presence - others commented on this too. Philomena used to fill the space.
- The people in the room were dressing with hints of purple. Her favourite colour. When you're not a purple person, have you any idea how hard it is to find something in this shade? I bought a lovely scarf online when I knew the funeral was taking place and there was a dress colour. It turned up about half an hour after I got home... typical.
- Watching the people take care of our Philomena was heart-warming. She has a tenant in her granny flat, who she'd taken on as proxy grand daughter. It was so beautiful to see the care she took with our friend as she was going into her final months and weeks.
- It was also lovely to see people participate in the short Masonic ceremony after the requiem mass (snooze). The Masonic ceremony is only a few minutes long. The words are moving and timeless. After the ritual is said, masons are invited to take a sprig of an evergreen - normally rosemary, pine or acacia, bow to the coffin, leave the sprig on the coffin, bow to the family, and go back to your seat. More than half of the people there weren't masons, but they joined in. It was lovely.
- If you want a decent spread at a wake, talk to the ladies at your local bowls club. The sausage rolls and fairy cakes were phenomenal.