The most difficult of days has dawned.
My wife and I take the flowers (for mum’s coffin) to the funeral directors’ in Cromer.
I print off copies of the eulogy, the poems and the extract from Under Milk Wood.
My younger brother and I deliver flowers to The Vernon Arms, where the wake is to be held.
My daughter arrives.
My wife collects my niece from Cromer station.
Relatives arrive from far and wide (Bristol, Yorkshire, Edinburgh, Australia).
The coffin arrives. The service begins.
One if the most emotional hours of my life follows. The service is exactly what mum would have wanted, and ends on a humorous note with a reading of one of Pam Ayres‘ poems (“Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth“).
The wake is a happier occasion, the crushing grief of the funeral lifted by good food and beer.
At last, the day is over. I feel physically and emotionally drained.