Cancer 24

Yesterday was my sister’s funeral. She was 63 and died of cancer. The funeral was at Markeaton Crematorium and I was allowed out of hospital for the ceremony.

There had been massive organising behind the scenes (behind my scenes anyway) between members of the family, NHS staff and funeral organisers to put in place the possibility of me watching a live stream of the funeral. Everybody was so kind and helpful. Fortunately I could attend.

Sue, Jack and Sarah picked me up from the hospital and drove me to the crematorium. The service was – and this is where no words represent the truth – good, with Sally at the helm. She has now done the funerals of three members of my childhood nuclear family. I told her I would be next.

I did not like being the cripple at the event. People were nice to me, shared a few words and so on, but it was from within me. I was seething at the situation. Helen dying, then I will die. It is not about injustice. It just is, but I would rather it was something else. It confused the situation, the service. Here I was, to grieve for my sister, but I couldn’t, because I was too caught up in myself, the pain, the lack of control. The lack of future.

I managed to reflect on our shared childhood, but at the time it was more like parallel play. We rarely played together, partly because of the age gap, partly because we we the opposite sex, but we spent a lot of time together in the car, in the evenings, often bickering.

In the ceremony it was suggested that she had a stricter upbringing than me. I don’t think that was the case. Girls and boys did get treated differently, particularly when teenagers. My Dad picked Helen up from the pub. He never picked me up, but that was a sense of chivalry rather than getting her home on time. I had to walk several miles in all weathers.

It was the most – and here I am at a loss for words – stimulating, important, central – funeral I have attended. She was my sister. Whether we got on or not is irrelevent. She was the closest person to me. We came out of the same womb, shared genes, shared a childhood that was to the exclusion of everyone else at the funeral. I knew her as a small child. It is odd that she is dead.