Untimely Funeral
I stand on the path outside the church
surrounded by unwilling mourners
tense with grief,
pain etched on every feature.
They seem shrunken into themselves,
these young people I have laughed
and sparred and tangled with
in school assemblies.
Last week was ordinary.
They'd moaned about exams,
played football, drunk beer,
told parents half-truths about revising.
Now, suddenly,
life stands questioned, existence uncertain.
This is a funeral not like most.
A young man has taken his own life
and here, today, his friends stand, bereft,
inheritors of questions that, as yet,
displace the memories.
How could he? How could he not?
Is this the end? Is this our end?
The dank November air
is charged with a hundred
'If-only'-'Surely-I-should''-
'How-can-he-not-have-said?'-
self-blaming, silent cries.
An occasional, gut-wrenched sob
breaks through, racking up the tension.
Minute by minute they come:
head teacher, looking studiously dignified
in college tie, form teacher distraught, crushed,
best mate he sat with that first day at infant school.
Friends sidle up quietly, embarrassed,
uncomfortable in their strangely formal clothes,
embracing with sudden fervour,
wishing to be anywhere but here,
looking to each other to help them stay.
Fifty, seventy, two hundred,
these are the young
who have no developed vocabulary for grief,
no tried-out funeral behaviour.
They bring no previous experience,
no coping strategies or comfort rituals.
The rawness of their grief
pierces me, setting nerves on edge,
rendering me by turns fearful and numb,
soaked in the deluge of their despair,
pulled about and wearied
by the energy of their searching.
And lurking somewhere in the crowd,
between the sobs and hugs and brooding,
is rage.
Pure bloody rage.
The hearse pulls up.
Involuntary intakes of breath and muffled cries
ripple through the assembly.
His father,
stepping from the car behind,
speaks for all, flinging his words
upwards, outwards
at the church.
'This is so wrong.'
©Janet Henderson 26th September 2016
surrounded by unwilling mourners
tense with grief,
pain etched on every feature.
They seem shrunken into themselves,
these young people I have laughed
and sparred and tangled with
in school assemblies.
Last week was ordinary.
They'd moaned about exams,
played football, drunk beer,
told parents half-truths about revising.
Now, suddenly,
life stands questioned, existence uncertain.
This is a funeral not like most.
A young man has taken his own life
and here, today, his friends stand, bereft,
inheritors of questions that, as yet,
displace the memories.
How could he? How could he not?
Is this the end? Is this our end?
The dank November air
is charged with a hundred
'If-only'-'Surely-I-should''-
'How-can-he-not-have-said?'-
self-blaming, silent cries.
An occasional, gut-wrenched sob
breaks through, racking up the tension.
Minute by minute they come:
head teacher, looking studiously dignified
in college tie, form teacher distraught, crushed,
best mate he sat with that first day at infant school.
Friends sidle up quietly, embarrassed,
uncomfortable in their strangely formal clothes,
embracing with sudden fervour,
wishing to be anywhere but here,
looking to each other to help them stay.
Fifty, seventy, two hundred,
these are the young
who have no developed vocabulary for grief,
no tried-out funeral behaviour.
They bring no previous experience,
no coping strategies or comfort rituals.
The rawness of their grief
pierces me, setting nerves on edge,
rendering me by turns fearful and numb,
soaked in the deluge of their despair,
pulled about and wearied
by the energy of their searching.
And lurking somewhere in the crowd,
between the sobs and hugs and brooding,
is rage.
Pure bloody rage.
The hearse pulls up.
Involuntary intakes of breath and muffled cries
ripple through the assembly.
His father,
stepping from the car behind,
speaks for all, flinging his words
upwards, outwards
at the church.
'This is so wrong.'
©Janet Henderson 26th September 2016
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| ©David Challoner 2019 |
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