My mother's wisdom

In Darlington, England, last Wednesday, my mother and my sister attended the funeral of my Uncle Frank who has died of cancer and old age. He would have been 94 next month.

My sister has sent me a copy of the seven minute address my mother made at the chapel service, in which she attempted the impossible by trying to recapitulate her brother's whole life in carefully selected details in order to convey all the essential qualities of someone who at one time or another had been a jazz pianist, mountaineer, clerk, Conscientious Objector, painter-decorator, organist, gardener, teacher, activist and composer. He and my mother had known one another for nearly 89 years.

She ended her tribute as follows:

... Above all he was a lovable, good, comical, much-loved man. My daughters and their children have all loved him dearly. I have a photo of him playing with my triplet grand-daughters in the garden when they were about 3. They were playing with snails. He is holding out his hand with a snail crawling along the back of it.

It's hard to believe he isn't still in the world. But I'm sure that the world has two levels. There is the ordinary surface one of our everyday lives, which are only temporary. But some experiences, and especially love, make us aware of the deeper, more real, timeless world where those we love are always with us.