Some call this a eulogy but not I. That word has an earlier specific meaning and is best kept for a recently dead tyrant whose remaining victims still can't quite believe the bastard is actually dead. Nick was a good guy but complex. He deserves my best winnowing.
Once mourners wore black. For various reasons, some legitimate, some specious, this now tends to be the exception. However I'll be speaking in the north which I left for ever in 1959.Things might be different. I have bought black slacks and a black polo-neck to go with black shoes and black socks. Over which a very dark coloured tweed jacket. As a concession to modernity I have not had my hair cut. In another age I might have been typed as bohemian.
There'll be only one communal piece of music, the hymn For Those in Peril on the Sea. Britain is not a churchgoing nation and Brits en masse sing badly: muttering, modulating when forced a couple of tones higher, starting slow and getting slower. I discussed this with V and we did a couple of run-throughs, V singing harmonies against my straight line. V laughed, "You know the hymn well enough to stay in tune."
Should I sing properly or mutter with the rest? "It's your brother," said V meaningfully.
The four-hour drive will skirt Birmingham, England's second biggest city. Occasional Speeder will be my back-up driver. Will those tired, possibly over-rehearsed, words match my aims? Nick, I’m sure, would prefer to be out on the Bay.
It is a great honor to speak about a loved one at their funeral. I know you will honor him with your well chosen words, AND with your song. Do both well and loud. They are the closest thing to a proper lamentation this modern world allows us.
ReplyDeleteColette: I approve of lamentation, it has more depth to it. "Mourning" is pseudo-onomatopoeia-ic, too much like the noise you might make involuntarily while lamenting. Unwanted realism which risks hiding the spiritual side. Thanks for that.
ReplyDeleteMusic must be part of a funeral. Music can go straight to the heart. Do sing from the bottom of yours, in memory of your brother.
ReplyDeleteMy father who just reached his 89th birthday, regularly presents us with a list of his chosen pieces for his funeral. Both for listening and for singing.
I have made my list as well.
When I was in boot camp, we SRs learned that hymn with a few different words, to accommodate the U. S. Navy's appropriation of it. We sang it each Sunday at the beginning of chapel services (closed with Doxology). Only the most stalwart among us could get through it without tears or a lump in the throat choking out the sound. By the end of our ten weeks training, though, we sang The Navy Hymn as if we had been born at sea.
ReplyDeleteA fitting hymn for your brother, I think. Sing it out from your heart and you can not go wrong.
I'm very sorry for your loss, Robbie.
Sabine: There will be music, some of which I have suggested, but given the core service can only last 20 minutes, the choice is limited. I did in fact suggest For Those in Peril, also the trio Soave Sia Il Vento from Mozart's Cosi which will be played as people enter the chapel. The final song (Rod Stewart's recording of When I'm Sailing) was chosen my niece, Kate, Nick's daughter, who was responsible for Nick's wellbeing during the latter tragic years.
ReplyDeleteI note both you and Crow urge me to sing from the heart and I take this to mean "with feeling". I will try to do this. But for me singing is first a matter of physical rather than emotional effort. Of breathing at the right moment, of achieving resonance in my throat, and of getting out the first note "with attack" - a difficult process to explain and to get right.
I sympathise with the lists you and your father have compiled; I've also done several. Time them all and make sure they don't reduce those attending to immobility for long periods. Also, I hope you both continue to change your choices: this is proof you are both still alive and capable of mental judgment. Which I'd rather have from you than the lists.
Crow: You will remember during George C. Scott's magnificent performance as Patton he said something like this. "Nobody ever won a war by laying down his life for his country. The sonsabitches who win wars are those that cause the enemy to lay down their lives." Singing is a bit like that. Whatever happens afterwards I cannot afford tears and lumps as I sing, better they should occur in the congregation.
The best verse in Peril is the last and is eminently singable:
Oh Trinity of love and power,
Our brethren shield in in danger's hour,
From rock and tempest, fire and foe,
Protect them where so'ere they go
Thus every more shall rise to thee,
Glad hymns of praise from land and sea.
And the best line is the third. Those four nouns should be spat out.
Also, in Chariots of Fire, the Prince of Wales says (approximately): "In the end you may only do your best. And no man may ask for more than that." Quietly, without bombast. I like that.
For all the mechanics of singing, I know, am certain at least, you will do quite well. What I meant, which you won't be able to control perfectly, is the emotional aspect. Your voice will carry your love on the words.
ReplyDeleteIn chapel, we sang the first two verses (as printed in the hymnals). Now I'll search for the full, original version to listen to, and Stewart's song, as well, which I don't know.
Crow: Not "every more" but "ever more". Damnit.
ReplyDeleteI like V.
ReplyDeleteI like how you winnowed and winnowed.
I like how careful you have been about all things here.
Marly: I feel that all the world would like V, but it's a thought that needs qualifying. No doubt she's a good mother and I know she's a good daughter (her mother has Alzheimer's) but these things are part of another world. I can say definitively that anyone who truly wanted to sing would like her.
ReplyDeleteWinnowing has been my trade for sixty years. Not to have winnowed would have been self-betrayal as well as a betrayal of Nick.
I think old age makes you careful.
Nevertheless - thanks.