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We went to a funeral this morning. The mother of one of our best, and oldest friends. I calculated that I had known her for around 38 years, the Spouse knew her for much longer. A Humanist officiant made sure the emphasis was on her life, the Margaret who had been born with the war - as a baby she had been buried in rubble when a bomb hit her street. Her husband was a political refugee, fleeing Hungary after the failed uprising. Marrying a foreigner in the NE of England in the fifties was a brave thing to do.
It occurred to me that all too soon we will lose all those people who experienced WWII and its aftermath. Not only those who fought, but those who endured; or who were brought into a world where war was their 'normal' and peace a sudden and confusing change to their reality. Margaret was hit with a double whammy of cancer, and died suddenly, before her husband who - with dementia his new reality - didn't fully understand his loss. Possibly that's a comfort, I don't know. We haven't experienced that yet.
It was a beautiful send-off, warm and emotional. As it should be.
It occurred to me that all too soon we will lose all those people who experienced WWII and its aftermath. Not only those who fought, but those who endured; or who were brought into a world where war was their 'normal' and peace a sudden and confusing change to their reality. Margaret was hit with a double whammy of cancer, and died suddenly, before her husband who - with dementia his new reality - didn't fully understand his loss. Possibly that's a comfort, I don't know. We haven't experienced that yet.
It was a beautiful send-off, warm and emotional. As it should be.