Helen's Funeral/Celebration, the wake and cremation

The Funeral/Life Celebration Many wonderful people travelled to Darwin to farewell Helen, sent their love and thoughts in physical ways as well as virtually via the web and also gathered from amongst her Darwin community. Notable in the interstate and international visitors were some of her family - Robin, David, Jennifer, Dorothy, Jamie, Alex and Greig: siblings, nieces, nephews, cousins as well as Lyn, a dear friend from Melbourne Uni days and Peta, a special friend and colleague from Brisbane. Also Douglas, Dave, Emma and Susan. Our friends Gabe, Diane, Susan and Emma made food for the celebration gathering and the wake. We had our life celebration at the Uniting Church in Nightcliff and their kind one-time minister Lee made himself available to support us and facilitate our ceremony. As it turns out Lee is also a poet and he particularly enjoyed being introduced to Helen's work. We began with an acknowledgement of the Church and its space, an acknowledgement of the Larrakia and a welcome from Louis. All family members and several friends had brought flowers from the gardens and roadsides of Darwin and the space was strewn with Frangipanni, Poinsettia, Heliconia and those big salmon-tinted tissue-paper flowers that grow near Helen's old house. We had Shirley's portrait and the decoupaged coffin out the front. On the side there was an installation of family photo albums, slideshows of photos of Helen on a computer and this blog running live on another computer for those who had never seen it. Douglas projected a photo of Helen laughing up above the lectern. The music to welcome people was the Cistercian Monk chants that Helen used to so enjoy when she was having contemplative time at home alone. Louis, Sally and I all learnt to enjoy these during her illness. After his welcome Louis invited us all to share a few minutes contemplation in silence. We thought of Helen and what she meant to us and why we had come together. Robin came forward and shared some thoughts of Helen as a young girl and also memories he was given by some of the older members of our family who had not been able to come in person. One I liked (and had not heard before) was how Cynthia - Helen's aunt and an academic at Melbourne Uni used to find messages from Mum chalked on the footpath in front of her office! Nothing too outre - most often invitations to lunch or some-such but still delightfully eccentric. Eccentricity, quirkiness, charm and creativity were hallmarks of all the stories and memories brought forth. Douglas spoke - his memories include Helen flooring it on the Western Highway in a borrowed 2CV and shouting Whoopee! as he held tightly to the car door. He also acknowledged how special he thought she was as a therapist in her combination of art with practice. Helen's dear friend Kaye shared memories of how they met at a writing workshop soon after Helen came to the NT and of their firm friendship thereafter. I read 6 poems from Helen's collected works including one unpublished. I will post them in the next few blog entries. We had another minute or sos silence for reflection then Dave read a piece about Death from the Prophet - Khalil Gibran - a favourite book (and author) throughout Helen's life. "And when the Earth shall claim your limbs then shall you truly dance" I then invited people to come forward and write words on the coffin if they wished, mingle and share cupcakes and tea, peruse the photos and other installation work and if they felt inclined - to choose a memento from the selection of household items, jewelry and crockery I had assembled near the front door. We also had copies of Helen's published poetry for people to take away as well as photocopies of an interview done with Nadia Milosevic which profiled Helen for the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy back in 2009 before she got sick. In closing we played the soundtrack to a performance of "The Grimstones" - a piece of music which made Helen smile whenever she heard it. Our celebration was everything Louis and I wanted it to be and many others found the ceremony both moving and appropriate for Helen. The Wake We gathered on the Nightcliff Foreshore as planned. Kaye was the first arrival having stayed in Darwin all day after the funeral. She was sitting under the Casuarinas enjoying the antics of the black cockies , the rainbow lorikeets and the sea breeze but not savouring the sandflies quite so much. It struck me that this too was an apposite experience in memory of Helen, who had many conflicting times between her desire to enjoy time with friends by the sea and her desire to avoid being devoured by midgies! We had an abundance of champagne, cool water, delicious snacks (rice paper rolls, dips and quiches) and lots of people came to spend time with us and remember Helen in a joyous manner. As sunset approached there was a wonderful light-show over the ocean with a wet season storm circling around us. Lightning, thunder, a wonderful breeze and beautiful patterns in the sky. The Cremation Initially we had planned the cremation would happen on the Wednesday - in between the morning and evening gatherings. There were various confusions regarding paperwork and organisation and in the end we deferred it until Thursday. I felt quite relieved about this as it had all seemed a bit too much on Wednesday. In my original thinking I had planned that just Louis and I would go and say goodbye to Mum in the coffin (now added to with wishes and words from many loved ones). It turned out that some of those visiting really wanted to be part of this too and as things transpired - thank goodness! It would have been very peculiar for just poor little us to be there on our own. The company we chose for the cremation is a family business that has been around for quite a long time (since 1954 in fact!). They were the people I originally bought the coffin from and although they were somewhat odd at the time they were also earnest and intent on looking after us as best they could. In the beginning they had some trouble accepting that we wanted to do everything ourselves and in our own way but once this was clear we planned that we would attend for the cremation only. We had been told that the company had recently bought its own new cremating oven and they had also prepared a "viewing room" out the back for families to gaze in at the oven through a small window. We arrived at 7.30am on Thursday - Louis, me, Robin, Jennifer, Dorothy and Peta. The "viewing room" was singularly awful. Very new bessa brink room, painted some bland colour and without any ornamentation. Ugly new sofa in one corner. Tight, "hard-wearing" plasticky grey carpet. A greyish roller blind covering a small window set asymmetrically on an internal wall. And most disturbingly - a horribly pervasive chemically smell which may have been from the carpet and the sofa but seemed very much like burning. In the past when I have attended cremations in Brisbane the coffin has trundled down a conveyor belt sort of thing and then disappeared behind curtains. In this case everything is way more upfront. We were invited into the room with the oven which was a large grey metal machine sitting in state surrounded by a clean concrete slab and plain painted bessa brick walls. Helen's coffin was sitting on a trolley/gurney in front of it. We arranged frangipanis and hair (from our hair-shaving ceremony back in Brisbane at the beginning of chemo) along the top of the coffin, admired it with its new inscriptions and said our farewells. We then retired to the "viewing room" and he raised the roller blind. Looking in we saw exactly where we had been standing a few moments earlier and the machine in all its glory. With a nod (and a certain air of solemnity) he pushed Helen's coffin inside and set the dials to start. It took about 1.5 seconds! He then emerged and stated that some people like to hear about the machine and how it works. With barely a pause to ascertain whether we were that kind or not he was off! A monologue of impressive proportions had begun. He ranged from technical details of cremation, his own practice and beliefs in this area, his philosophy on choosing a wife, his parents' background and reasons for starting the business (including admittedly fascinating Darwin historical detail on how deaths were dealt with back in the 50s), what life was like when he used to work as a musterer (plus how much he earnt a week when mustering vs funeral directing) and then gave us chapter and verse on the great job satisfaction inherent in his current role. It was apparent he feels he does a great job. We were all somewhat hornswoggled. I made a few gentle and then less gentle attempts to wind him up and eventually we left. As Dorothy, Jennifer, Peta and I drove away we marveled at his lack of insight and sensitivity to social cues but also mused on how delightfully peculiar and entertaining the experience was and how much we thought Helen would have enjoyed it. Both Louis and I were glad to have had both the company and social support that we did for this decidedly non-spiritual and non-meaningful experience and glad too that the day before had gone so much as we had hoped.