The day started well. Mum's chooks delivered the most delightful yellow-yolked eggs scrambled over white bread toast. I always know that I am around family when the only bread available is Baker's Delight toast-sliced white bread. Dreadful stuff says she who has some gluten-free seedy bread in the freezer. I'm used to being questioned over my brick of almond milk sitting in the fridge, my decaffeinated coffee capsules. Everything about me screams "Melbourne Wanker."
So be it.
We got ready for the day. I slipped a pair of Pandora Tree of Life earrings in my ears. It felt fitting. We are born. We live. We eventually die. I am Alpha and Omega, says the Lord God. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come - the Almighty One. And yes, I can spout Revelations when I have to. I'm around my family. It's good to have a few of these things up your sleeve. The service is familiar, even if walking into a church makes me wonder if the place will erupt in flames of fall down around me. It seems that the church admits heathens now. I shouldn't have worried.
My mother's phone rang as we were getting ready. It was my cousin Jeannie asking if my mother could do something in the service. Mum obliged. Being on speaker, I had to ask, "So this is going to be all smells and bells today?"
"Yes, Dory."
I wouldn't expect anything else. Jeannie's husband is an Anglican priest. My family does High Anglican very, very well. My aunt would be pleased. Mind you, she was in the box out front of the church and really didn't have a say about anything, but I'm sure she would have been floating about today in her old place of worship taking away the love which was there as we celebrated her life.
We arrived at the Church a little while later. It was good to be with the family. There was a lovely turnout to see my beloved aunt of to her next port of call, wherever that may be.
My cousin's husband came out in his cassock. He was in charge of the smoking frankincense for part of the ceremony.
"Nice dress, mate." I told him.
"It's one of my favorites," he replied.
It's what you get when you send a heathen into a church. They know me well. Maybe it was wrong to recommend they watch Fleabag - that cassock shopping scene from the second series. Somehow I think they will love Fleabag. It will play well to their sense of humour.
So we said goodbye to my dear old aunt in a way that she would have loved - even though I suspect she'd be a little overwhelmed by the fuss that was made. There is something comforting in the rites of the Anglican Church - the dousing with Holy Water, the tilt of the censer and it sprays its smoke around the place. The hymns which have been branded into my brain so that you can spout them out without thinking. (Damn you photographic memory).
Mum sat at the end of the pew. She whispered to me, "I don't want anything like this when I go," looking at the vestments and candles and religious paraphernalia in full flight.
"It's fine, Mum. You won't. But you should tell us what you want." Thankfully my mother is a very fit, active, sharp-minded 81-years-old. Hopefully we don't have to worry about this for a long while. We'll get her to commit on paper what she might like so there's no arguments at the time.
Then it was over. My cousins walked my aunt down the aisle to the hearse, the fellow with the thurible walked in front of the hearse as it drove off, and she was on her way. This is the second time we've seen the coffin off down this road. It's what they do. It's a good thing to do. It completes the sense of an ending. Like seeing off a friend at the end of the night after a good party.
I went back into the church after to sit and enjoy the peace for a bit, watch the angels in the architecture and to connect with the memory of the stones. All Saints, Ainslie used to be the receiving station for Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney - the end of the line. The huge arches would fit a train carriage which carried the departed as they made their way to their final resting place. I find all this quite fitting. It's a lovely church.
Sitting in this quiet space, watching the angels in the architecture, taking in the last of the frankincense, looking through the stained glass, remembering the awesome vocal power of the Tenor Cantor who sang both Handel and Mendelsohn from the pulpit (he used to sing with my Uncle Pete in the choir) I felt a sense of peace. Can you ask for any more than that after a funeral?
After the wake, at which we, the cousins, all reconnected, I asked the folks to drop me off at the National Gallery of Australia. I had a hankering to see Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles again. And take in the Geoffrey Smart exhibition. And get a bit of time on my own. I'd walk the four kilometres back to the hotel after. That would be my exercise for the day.
I got my hour and a half at the gallery, taking in the eclectic mix of indigenous art, with modern and experiment art, with High Australian standards like Drysdale, McCubbin, Nolan and Margaret Olley and the like. The Jeffrey Smart exhibition was excellent. There was a Francis Bacon triptych which held me in it's thrall, as only Francis Bacon can do. And I must make a point of stating that the National Gallery is full of images of vaginas - which seems apt for a town full of cunts. (I shouldn't be crass. Besides, you need warmth and depth to be one of those - most of the pollies around here lack those traits.)
And I got some time alone with Blue Poles - a painting which caused such controversy when it was bought back in 1973. Gough Whitlam did the country a favour. I left as the gallery was closing, happy, replete and wanting to come back one day.
The hour's walk back to the hotel was also needed. A good head clearer. Some time in the sun on a glorious summer's afternoon. Some thinking time. Time to shake off the day. Time to just be. Time to mentally judge the public servants in ill-fitting suits riding their bikes home in the barely there peak-ten-minute traffic.
I don't know when I'll get back to Canberra. I've been coming here to see my aunt for many years - now she's gone, it may be a while before I return. I do like it here. I find it a strangely comforting
And now it's time for bed. Mum's asleep on the couch in front of Midsummer Murders. My stepdad is working on his sudoku. And I'm having a write.
And all is right with the world.
I will leave you with a song of the day which I would be perfectly happy to have played at my funeral. Maybe it's time we looked for some new modern standards for devotional music. This one stands the test of time.
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