This afternoon was the time to say goodbye to Marjorie or Marj as she was always known. I hadn't seen her in the past four years - during which time she spiralled deep down into the pit of dementia. She was eighty four years old.
Her best friend Thelma lives two doors away from us and it was through her that I first got to know Marj. Thelma also kept me informed about her decline. Marj had a wicked sense of humour and I had a nice chinwag with her whenever we met. We seemed to connect. Though she gave out commonsensical wisdom, there was also nonsensical silliness.
Marj never had children though she was married for almost thirty years - up until her divorce in the late eighties. She worked in the steel industry but not around furnaces and molten steel - safely behind the scenes in administration.
She loved to travel and had been to many far-flung places including Mexico, Australia and the Caribbean.
Round about 2010, I noticed that she had developed an involuntary tic and gradually it became more pronounced. She was still driving her little white car but Thelma was becoming worried about her safety. "She's losing it," Thelma confided.
One sunny afternoon - seven or eight years ago - Thelma came a-knocking on our door. Marj had fallen over and couldn't get up. Would I help?
There she was lying on the grass verge like a sack of potatoes. It was a struggle but with a big heave-ho I managed to get her up on her feet again. She really was losing it and the tic was worse than ever.
There weren't many standing on the proverbial quay to wave her off from Hutcliffe Wood Crematorium. Spring sunshine beamed through elongated windows and we were asked to sit quietly thinking of Marj as the sound system gave us "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss.
And in that moment it was as if the familiar classical tune became the soundtrack for any human life. Waltzing along merrily to the very last bars with ups and downs, lively sections and dips, speed and slowness and the same refrain echoing throughout. But no thunderous applause for Marj at the very end, just those velvet curtains closing quietly around her beech coffin and the remains of a glorious day waiting outside. See you Marj.
from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/15daOrh
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