Sylvia left us detailed notes on what she wanted for her funeral and she told us she had enjoyed planning it. We added the round “ Dona Nobis Pacem” as we wanted some singing in the service. Other music was performed by a string quartet from Lawyers Music; the players were colleagues of Sylvia's for many years. Sylvia's notes are copied below in italics.
“What is dying?” by Bishop Brent
“What is dying?” by Bishop Brent
Read by Sylvia's school friend Catherine Lippa
In the days after my mother died in 2000, while my father, sisters and I were discussing what to include in her funeral, Belinda’s mother-in-law Marjorie Kembery suggested this reading. We all immediately liked it, and in the service it was read by my godmother, Margaret Macdonald. I wasn’t sure at first about including the same reading for my own funeral, but on reflection I rather like the association.
I am standing upon that foreshore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength, and I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come down to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says, “there! She’s gone!”
Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all: she is just as large in mast and spar and hull as ever she was when she left my side; just as able to bear her load of living freight to the place of her destination. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at that moment when someone at my side says, “there! She’s gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, “here she comes!”
And that is dying.
“Tant de belles choses” sung by, and words by, Françoise Hardy, music by Pascale Daniel and Alain Lubrano
http://philipclemo.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/tant-de-belles-choses.mp3
Eulogy by Annabel Kapp
“Lament” sung by John Kapp
Eulogy by work colleague Sheila Sprigge
The following 2 readings don’t have any huge significance for me although they express a sentiment which I like.
“Life Goes On” - Joyce Grenfell
Read by Sylvia's first cousin Amanda Foster
Dona Nobis Pacem - Give Us Peace
http://philipclemo.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/tant-de-belles-choses.mp3
I came across this song, bizarrely enough, on a flight to Central Asia in 2009. I’d got to the airport (typically) late and flustered, and once I’d collapsed onto the plane, I searched through the airline’s entertainment system to try and de-stress. This song worked like magic, and once I returned home I bought the album of the same name, mainly for this one song. After my diagnosis I found the idea of still having many beautiful things ahead of me, despite my fears and worries, extremely comforting and inspiring, and I listened to it very frequently, especially during my treatments at the Herzog clinic. And I did indeed have many more beautiful experiences!
I couldn’t find an English translation of the words, so this is my own attempt – undoubtedly imperfect, but it describes what sense I personally made of this song.
Même s’il me faut lâcher ta main
Sans pouvoir te dire “à demain”
Rien ne défera jamais nos liens…
Même s’il me faut aller plus loin
Couper des ponts, changer de train
L’amour est plus fort que le chagrin…
L’amour qui fait battre nos coeurs
Va sublimer cette douleur,
Transformer le plomb en or
Tu as tant de belles choses à vivre encore…
Tu verras au bout du tunnel
Se dessiner un arc-en-ciel
Et refleurir les lilas,
Tu as tant de belles choses devant toi…
Même si je veille d’une autre rive
Quoi que tu fasses, quoi qu’il t’arrive,
Je serai avec toi comme autrefois…
Même si tu pars à la dérive
L’état de grâce, les forces vives
Reviendront plus vite que tu ne crois…
Dans l’espace qui lie ciel et terre
Se cache le plus grand des mystères
Comme la brume voilant l‘aurore
Il y a tant de belles choses que tu ignores…
La foi qui abat les montagnes
La source blanche dans ton âme
Penses-y quand tu t’endors
L’amour est plus fort que la mort…
Dans le temps qui lie ciel et terre
Se cache le plus beau des mystères
Penses-y quand tu t’endors
L’amour est plus fort que la mort…
Even if I must let go of your hand
Without being able to say, “see you tomorrow”
Nothing will ever undo our ties…
Even if I must go away,
Cast myself off, take another track,
Love is stronger than grief…
The love that makes our hearts beat
Will sublimate this pain
And transform lead into gold;
You have so many beautiful things still to live for…
You will see at the end of the tunnel
Emerges a rainbow
And the lilacs bloom again;
You have so many beautiful things ahead of you…
Even if I am watching from another shore
No matter what you do, no matter what happens,
I will be with you as before.
Even if you drift away from a state of grace
Your life force will return before you know it.
Within the space which binds heaven and earth
Hides the greatest mystery.
Just as the mist obscures the dawn
There are so many beautiful things you don’t yet know…
The faith which moves mountains,
The white spring within your soul;
Ponder as you fall asleep:
Love is stronger than death
Within the moment which binds heaven and earth
Hides the most beautiful mystery.
Ponder as you fall asleep:
Love is stronger than death.
Eulogy by Annabel Kapp
Eulogy by John Kapp
“Lament” sung by John Kapp
Words by Wilfred Wilson Gibson and set to music by Reginald Kapp in 1919.
Accompanied by Sue Harvey and recorded by Philip Clemo.
http://philipclemo.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/john-song-mix-normalized.mp3
We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?
A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings—
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?
http://philipclemo.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/john-song-mix-normalized.mp3
We who are left, how shall we look again
Happily on the sun or feel the rain
Without remembering how they who went
Ungrudgingly and spent
Their lives for us loved, too, the sun and rain?
A bird among the rain-wet lilac sings—
But we, how shall we turn to little things
And listen to the birds and winds and streams
Made holy by their dreams,
Nor feel the heart-break in the heart of things?
Eulogy by work colleague Sheila Sprigge
The following 2 readings don’t have any huge significance for me although they express a sentiment which I like.
“The comfort and sweetness of peace” - Helen Steiner Rice
Read by Belinda Kembery, nee Kapp
After the clouds, the sunshine,
After the winter, the spring,
After the shower, the rainbow,
For life is a changeable thing,
After the night, the morning,
Bidding all darkness cease,
After life’s cares and sorrows,
The comfort and sweetness of peace.
Eulogy by Frances Reynolds
Eulogy by Jacqie Carr Taylor
“Beim Schlafengehen” from Four Last Songs
by Richard Strauss
This
is one of my favourite works, and one which I played twice with Lawyers Music
orchestra, in 1997 and 2008. I’m not sure I did justice to the violin solo but
it’s one that I hugely enjoyed having the opportunity to play. To prepare for
playing the solo I researched all the recordings I could find, and this is the
version which, for me, best captured the poignancy and soaring beauty of this
wonderful piece. It was at that time – long before I really believed my death
would ever happen - that I decided I wanted this played at my funeral.
Staatskapelle Dresden, conducted by
Giuseppe Sinopoli, soloist Cheryl Struder
Nun
der Tag mich müd gemacht
Soll
mein sehnliches Verlangen
Freundlich
die gestirnte Nacht
Wie
ein müdes Kind empfangen.
Hände,
laßt von allem Tun
Stirn vergißt du
alles Denken,
Alle meine Sinne
nun
Wollen sich in
Schlummer senken.
Und die Seele
unbewacht
Will in freien
Flügen schweben,
Um in
Zauberkreis der Nacht
Tief und
tausendfach zu leben.
“On going to sleep”
Now that I am
wearied of the day,
My dearest
longings shall
Welcome the
starry night
Like a sleepy child.
Hands, cease
your toiling,
Brow, forget all
your thinking,
All my senses
now
Yearn to sink
into slumber.
And my
unfettered soul
Will soar up
freely, so that
In the enchanted
circle of the night
It may live
deeply and a thousandfold.
“Life Goes On” - Joyce Grenfell
Read by Sylvia's first cousin Amanda Foster
If I should go before the rest of you
Break not a flower
Nor inscribe a stone
Nor when I am gone
Speak in a Sunday voice
But be the usual selves
That I have known
Weep if you must
Parting is hell
But life goes on
So .... sing as well
Dona Nobis Pacem - Give Us Peace
All sing
“It’s a wonderful world”(sic) by Louis Armstrong
(to be played at the end of the service so that, hopefully, people leave with a smile on their faces)
http://philipclemo.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/02-what-a-wonderful-world.mp3
(to be played at the end of the service so that, hopefully, people leave with a smile on their faces)
http://philipclemo.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/02-what-a-wonderful-world.mp3
This song always left me feeling warmed and cheered. It expresses beautifully the sense of peacefulness and wellbeing which comes from appreciating the simple pleasures in life.
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see ‘em bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
I see skies of blue, clouds of white
Bright blessed days, dark sacred nights
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
The colours of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands, saying how do you do?
They’re really saying, “I love you”
I hear babies cry, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself - what a wonderful world…
For the burial:
Rabindranath Tagore:
My
great-aunt, Auntie Joyce, was brought up in India, and was very familiar with
the writings of Rabindranath Tagore. After her death I kept a book of his
poems, and although I didn’t read them often they always felt like a link to
her. When I came across this poem I was instantly drawn to it.
Say
not in grief that she is no more
But
say in thankfulness that she was;
A
death is not the extinguishing of a light
But
the putting out of a lamp
Because
the dawn has come.
To finish service on upbeat note, I like the
idea of a release of helium balloons (latex and biodegradable) – for example
everyone (including children) to take one, be instructed to think of some
quality precious to them (associated with me or not), eg love, compassion, peace,
laughter, joy, kindness etc, then all go outside and in unison release the balloons
and send out that quality into the world. Balloons maybe in blue and white
only?
(Environmental facts – harvesting rubber
for balloons does not harm trees and discourages deforestation. Balloons
degrade in about the same amount of time as an oak leaf. During a balloon
release, most balloons rise to an altitude of approximately 5 miles, where the
balloon will either freeze or explode from the decreased air pressure,
fragmenting into small pieces about the size of a penny, and falling back to
earth where they decompose naturally. If ingested by animals, the rubber passes
naturally through the digestive system without damaging the animal.)
Would like either burial plot or cremation plaque in Brompton
Cemetery (my local area, a beautiful peaceful place, and people can visit easily
if they want).
Wake
A collection of photos on projected screen,
changing every 5-7 seconds, of good times, different stages of my life, happy
memories. Photos of me alone plus with variety of friends and family, from as a baby/ young child up to adulthood. Selection is in folder on my computer in
iPhoto, named “Assorted”.
 |
| Release of balloons from the terrace of the Pembroke, where the wake was held. |
