More Sadness

I passed the grave pictured above on the way to Mum & Dad's place of rest last December. I first realised that this is where my Cousin Peter and Auntie Hilda and Uncle Bert were buried at Mum's funeral. We passed it then and Peter's name jumped out at me as we carried her to her resting place.

He was some three years older than me. I didn't know him all that well as a kid, but knew of him - that he was handsome, very assured, an excellent dancer (ballroom style) and doing well at school - enough to get him into quite a prestigious Catholic school in Manchester. I followed in his footsteps to the same school, but not in the looks or dancing, or even assurance, departments. Since he was very much my senior at Xaverian College I rarely saw him there, but he was a friendly enough presence. I suppose I vaguely envied him.

In his early twenties he was blinded in a bad accident. And he died very young, just twenty-seven, a couple of years after I started teaching. I can't remember what his illness was, but it wasn't associated with his blindness. Devastatingly sad. Uncle Bert also had problems with his sight, but looking at the gravestone I realise he lived to a fine old age, almost against the odds. He always seemed less well than Jack & Jim, his younger brothers, who both died in their fifties.

I briefly met Peter's wife back in December, at the gig we attended featuring Clive Gregson. John introduced us. It seems he's known her for some years. Small world, and all that. It was nice to meet her, but tinged with something on the edge of sadness. According to John, she'd been deeply affected by Peter's death, taking years to really get over it.

In many ways we never get over the deaths of loved ones, I suppose; there's something both sad yet strangely happy in that.