Forty Years On

Forty years ago I stood at the altar next to my beloved, repeating the marriage vows after the minister, surprised to find they were different from how I remembered, somehow finding just enough voice to be heard down the aisles, full of trepidation, full of confidence anyway, with my life spread out in front of me like a pile of presents waiting for me to unwrap them.

I wrote my speech on a scrap of paper on the way to the wedding reception. Jenny the bridesmaid, aged 4, ran up and down between the tables shouting while I strained to make myself heard. My new bride and I slipped away to the nearby canalside to have some romantic photos taken by my old school-friend Tim. Eventually we said our goodbyes to all the friends and relations and were driven to the railway station, thence to Devon for the honeymoon. When we changed trains at Exeter, the friendly and sharp-eyed train guard made sure we had the carriage to ourselves.

Two weeks later we were on our way to Gadaffi's Libya, where I would take up the post of English Language Teacher at the Petroleum Institute. That was followed a year later by a similar assignment in Saudi Arabia. Those two years changed my life. Returning to England I retrained as a computer programmer, bought a house, and brought forth a child.

Twenty years later my children had flown the nest or were about to, my parents were dead, the computer work had finally dried up, my house was sold, and my dream of becoming a Church minister was history. At this point my life as I knew it came to an end.

I bought myself a canal boat to live on and the next twelve years were spent wandering the watery wilderness. As the old song goes, “Life goes on, long after the reason for living is gone”. Probably the only reason I can sit here writing this now is because my wife never gave up on me, which I suppose proves I married the right one, no-one else would have stayed the distance. I survived as best I could, taking whatever work came my way – shop assistant, driver, chambermaid (yes!). Canal life was beautiful but hard. I remember one night searching for firewood in the pouring rain so that I could light a small fire, as there wasn't enough money to buy fuel for the stove. All through this – and more – my wife stuck with me, keeping me going, because I just didn't care any more.

There's a great passage in Ezekiel where the prophet is taken in a vision to a valley where the bones of Israel's dead warrior's lay strewn. God asks: “Man, can these dry bones live?”, and all Ezekiel can say in response is: “Only you can answer that” (my rendition). That was exactly how I felt about my life, and so apparently did God. Because bone by bone, piece by piece, he reassembled my life.

It hasn't been easy. I'm older and I hope wiser now. Almost all the older generation who witnessed my marriage have gone from the Earth, Gadaffi is dead, my best man (and best friend) won't talk to me, my children are forging careers in art and music, Jenny is managing a holiday business in France, my photographer friend became director of a well-known company, left (to run a hotel, lost it) then made a heroic come-back. Time passes.

I don't know what the future holds in store for me, but I hope I will live it authentically, and I hope I never stop until I get to the very end. This weekend the two of us will celebrate with a quiet couple of days on the coast and a meal out. I think we deserve that.

3/12/13 This is it

So. This is my journal.

It's now nine days since I left Dart Mills. The three days there were extraordinary. The sun shone, the scenery glowed gold and green and blue. I felt exhilarated.

The people I met, I would be happy to call them my friends for life. I felt engaged with the learning with an intensity that I have rarely experienced before.

It took me at least two days after returning to come back down to planet Earth.

Since then I have completed the Eulogy. I was surprised at how, when I actually put pen to paper, the words flowed and the piece took shape. I had expected to go through several revisions but in fact I had to make fairly few changes to the first draft.

It was harder for me to maintain a sufficiently sensitive tone in my dialogue with the student whose uncle I was describing. This was a salutary reminder to me that it was she who 'owned' her uncle, not me. In the end though, we were both happy with what I'd written.

Now I would like to concentrate on the course and follow up lines of research that I find interesting. Instead I will have to devote much of my time to selling the boat. I now have an interested buyer as well as an interested renter. All I need now is to seal a deal. So we are at the negotiation stage.

Selling the boat is part of the strategy of becoming a celebrant, which began last April when I started to give  the boat a face-lift. Since the logistics of boating make it difficult even to pursue the celebrants course, let alone enter upon a new career, I have to sell up. This is a good time in my life to move on, as I am getting older and the rigours of boat life are harder on me than before. The proceeds of the sale will also enable me to fund the start-up phase of my self-employment.

I have also been able to raise the course fees by taking a cash lump sum from an old pension fund.

This is however all a vexation and a distraction from focusing on the funeral  work, and the sooner it is all behind me the better.

As a new starter I'm finding the course structure - in terms of assignments and activities - rather bewildering. I trust it will all become clear as I go along.

I am particularly interested in the idea of so-called DIY funerals and would like to find out more about this area, and about how my services might possibly fit in with it.