The Funeral Trip (day 2) ……….

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At 6am I can hear F i L , in the adjoining room, opening and closing his hotel room door and turning the keys.  I’d already found out that are very few people staying here at the moment, as it’s out of season, so I don’t have to go and stop him making a noise.

By 7am we can hear the basin tap running.  He’s true to his word and, in order to be ready for the funeral in time (as he only has 2.5 hours to get ready!), he doesn’t bathe or shower.  I make a mental note not to sit next to him.

He gets himself dressed and we’re relieved to see that he has managed to go out and get himself a replacement black jumper; that is until he turns around and we see that it is completely covered in white fur from his cat.  It looks like it’s been used as a cat bed!

We go down for breakfast and we have the usual meal ordering trick (I’m still waiting for husband to say “I’ll have a bag on my head” as he keeps threatening to see whether F i L still says “I’ll have the same as him”).

I can’t stand watching F i L eat.  I hate the way he pushes the food forward in his mouth with his tongue as he chews.  I did have to laugh though when he was trying to eat the sauce from the baked beans with a fork and couldn’t work out why it kept falling through the prongs.

We pack our belongings.  F i L has lost his flannel!  It’s the least of our worries and he couldn’t remember if he had really brought it with him.

In the car on the way to his brother’s house he starts fishing around from his seat in the back, under the driver’s seat with his walking stick.

“What are you doing?” I say

“I’m looking to see if my thing is here.  I might have left it in the car.”  He was looking under the seat for his flannel.

“It’s not there and you’re hitting the seat while [No. 2 Son] is driving.  Stop it! It’s dangerous.”

We arrive at the house in time for F i L to take his place in the cortege.  We weren’t sure we would be able to do that.  He is very jolly and happy which is unnerving to me for two reasons.  Firstly, it’s his brother’s funeral.  Should he be happy? Did he understand what was happenning?  Secondly, when he’s that jolly he usually says something really crass.

As it turned out it we didn’t really need to worry.  Pretty much all he did was exchange pleasantries with other guests so we managed to talk to family and relax a little, and even better he doesn’t take his coat off so they never got to see his furry jumper.

The last part of the day is the cremation, and this is family only.  We gather around the coffin in the crematorium and say our part.  As the curtains close around the coffin his brother’s wife finally breaks down and crys.  She had been so brave all day and it was heartbreaking to watch her weeping.  F i L looked at her aghast!  What was she crying for?

Outside we said goodbye to each other.  Brother’s wife gave me a big hug and said

“I think it’s good that [F i L] was here…..”  The unspoken part of that statement was ‘even if he didn’t know what was going on’.

We got back in the car and after a short while he’s fishing around under the seat with his stick,looking for his flannel again.

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• The Little Black Jumper (thedementiadiary.wordpress.com)

The Funeral Trip (day 1) ………..

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Thursday evening we set off for the 250 mile trip to Yorkshire.  We had hoped to leave an hour earlier than we did but, hey ho, it wasn’t going to be fun whatever time we left.

When we arrived at F i L’s house a friend of ours was visiting.  He said to husband

“I’m really sorry to hear about your brother”

Now we were waiting to hear whether No. 1 Son was coming to the funeral (No. 3 Son had already wrangled his was out of it) so husband’s response was

“What about him?”

“Well,” said friend “he’s died hasn’t he?”

“No.  My dad’s brother died.”

Friend looked confused, then said

“Your dad told me his son had died.”

We could already tell it was going to be a fun trip.

 

After driving for a couple of hours we stopped for dinner.  F i L cannot miss a meal whether he is hungry or not.  We happened upon a fifties style diner and thought that it would be fun to eat there.

F i L has an infuriating habit, particularly for husband.  Wherever we order food or drink F i L will always order the same as husband, even when he has previously said he is going to have something else.  I said I was going to have a burger.  F i L also wanted a burger.  Husband was going to have the all day breakfast.  The waitress comes.  I order my burger, husband orders his breakfast and F i L – you guessed it – orders an all day breakfast.  Husband says

“No you wanted the breakfast burger!  He’ll have the breakfast burger.”

His burger comes to the table and F i L realises that he doesn’t actually know HOW to eat a burger.  Suddenly he’s watching me to see how it’s done.  The thing is I don’t like tomato or pickle so I’m taking them out of mine.  Now F i L thinks that you have to take the burger apart to eat it.  He spreads the pieces of burger across the plate and starts to eat them, but with a knife and fork.

He never ate the actual burger!

 

The Little Black Jumper

Last nights visit was hard.

We’re getting ready to take F i L to his brother’s funeral.  He was one of 6 children and this was his last (and emotionally closest) sibling.

As I’ve said before the funeral is a 5 hour drive away (7 by the time we’ve stopped for F i L to have dinner at the allotted time etc.) and we need to be at the house by 10.30am, which means staying overnight in a hotel.  Trying to find a suitable hotel was a challenge.  Then getting him to understand that he needs to be ready early in the morning (see http://wp.me/p2aUqx-k).  Yesterday should have been a fairly straight forward visit.

At the weekend we got him to try on his suit as that’s what he wanted to wear for the funeral.  He’s had it since 1987 and since M i L died he’s lost at least 3 stone (he was overweight).  The suit was, unsurprisingly, too big for him but to be honest he just looked his usual scruffy self.  He wasn’t comfortable in it so we offered him the option of wearing a pair of black trousers that he’d bought recently, with a shirt and tie and black jumper.  Husband and I would have to go on the search for a suitable jumper without him as the last time we went clothes shopping it took 6 HOURS to buy one pair of trousers in ONE shop. These trousers subsequently became known as the ‘Modernistic Trousers’ (that story to follow).

As Husband and I both work this involved a dash out in our breaks to try to find a jumper.  Husband went out first.  His office is surrounded by markets, but he had no luck, so it was my turn.  I’d already spent time that day trying to confirm details with the hotel and booking flowers, sorting their delivery etc. so this was another added pressure.  I dashed into the local supermarket and, joy of joy, they had exactly what we were looking for.  Best of all it was just £8! F i L physically winces when you tell him the price of things so this met 2 seperate criteria – it was suitable for a funeral and it was cheap!

So last night he tried it on.  He tried to take the tags off before he tried it on.  Husband had to remind him that this was not a good idea. It took 20 minutes to get it over his head as he kept turning it one way out and then the other.  He went off to the kitchen (?) to do this and kept narrowly missing the cat litter box with the sleeves. He was huffing and puffing and sighing which is always a bad sign.

When he came back to the living room wearing it he was looking at the floor shaking his head.

“It doesn’t fit”

It was fine.  It’s a slimmer fit than he’s used to, especially as he’s still wearing the voluminous jumpers from pre-weight loss, but he wasn’t satisfied.  He kept pulling at the bottom of the jumper, trying to stretch it down to his knees, as if this would fix it.  He wanted us to give him an alternative right then and there. Couldn’t we get him something bigger and better quality (ie more expensive!)?

Husband and I just don’t have time to take him to find another one today, so we’ve had to send him shopping on his own.  We’ve explained that he has all day today and tomorrow to find something else.  We have to work.  His solution?

“You’ve gone to so much trouble……I’ll wear this one”

There’s nothing worse than him ‘putting up’ with something he doesn’t like so fingers crossed he’ll find something.