Two Things: Death and Remembrance

 I went to a funeral today. It was the second in just over three weeks. Both funerals were for middle-aged men who had been ill for a long time. Today's was for my cousin's husband. He was a man I did not know very well but in this part of the world funerals are attended as much for the living as the dead. My cousin was near my age and we played together a lot when we were children. Looking at his young family sitting with their mother I realised how lucky I was to have had the love of both my parents until I was in my fifties.

My friend Swisser's parents were both gone before I lost mine and she told me that after her father died she became obsessed with her mortality and the fear leaving her children behind. She said, that in time, these feelings became more manageable. I am so affected by dying right now. The death of my dogs has devastated me in ways that I know are disproportionate. I am terribly saddened by the sight of dead badgers, foxes and rabbits on the roadside.

The picture above shows a heart-shaped meadow in the midst of an oak wood planted by a Gloucestershire farmer, Winston Howes, in remembrance of his wife who died when she was 55. This was, according to The Telegraph, a family secret until it was photographed by a passing balloonist. It is now all over the internet. I couldn't rest until I'd found it on Google Maps. It kept my mind off the drowned spiders, dead rabbits and funerals past and present.