1. STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

Fred's funeral and thoughts of a widow,

STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN

1. Daddy’s Happy

It was almost dark inside Saint Saviour’s church and Daisy would probably have given all she had to be anywhere but there, but there she had to be. Fred, bless him, was dead and nobody from his old home had come to bid him farewell. And he’d said he had brothers, two of them, but where were they when he needed them to say a tearful goodbye? They’d missed his wedding (for quite understandable military reasons) but now Fred was dead It seemed that he had been largely forgotten, though she had written and told both of his brothers. Maybe the trouble was the funeral fell only five days after his death. Maybe after the chaos of war there wasn’t enough time for people she’d never known to make that journey.

So here she was on her own. Her own brother Ian might have come, but he was still waiting to be released from military service, in Germany. And he’d been sorry, but there was no way he could make it.

Then there was her very best friend Phoebe. But someone had to look after the kids, four year old Isabel and two year old Brian. They couldn’t be left on their own and she didn’t trust any of her neighbours because she hadn’t known them for long.

Their house, the one she’d prayed for, was one of an estate of temporary homes thrown up in answer to the homeless crisis following the dreadful second world war when so many homes had been reduced to rubble by mindless bombing. Built to last a mere twenty-five years the one made available to her by the council was an answer to a young widow’s prayer, but the sadness was Fred had barely seen Number Four Winkerby Road before he passed away.

So there was nobody to hold her hand or weep with her, at the funeral but for a handful of elderly ladies who enjoyed a good weep and consequently made it from funeral to funeral. And it made her sad when she knew that they were all in the world left to join her and say goodbye to the invisible man they had never met as he lay in his coffin. Maybe it was good they were there: Daisy didn’t care one way or the other.

“Are you all right?” asked the Reverend Pocock after the service before she followed the small funeral procession to a prepared grave. He had noticed as she wiped a tear from her eyes with a lacy handkerchief that looked already suspiciously damp and thought a few kindly words might help.

“No,” she replied. Of course I’m not! I just buried my husband and I’ve got two kids to bring up on my own and no-one to help me!

“Silly of me to ask,” he apologised, “but even hollow words can help to fill the silence of an old empty church like this one.”

“It’s not the church. I just feel empty,” she whispered.

“If it’s any help, we have a Christian Widows group that meets here, every Wednesday afternoon. It has to be an afternoon because the kids have to be at school if there are any, though, truth to tell, not many widows are young enough to have school age children. There are the war ones, of course, whose husbands went away, never to return.”

“Mine are too young,” she replied, and then flared up, “and it’s not your right to assume I’m a Christian, because… well, I suppose I am and I’m not. If he exists, the God you revere, why did he let my Fred die like he did? In so much pain? A loving god would never do that! Only a hating God would think of such a thing!”

“It’s one of those mysteries,” he nodded, “I sometimes find myself wondering myself.”

“I’m going home after I’ve seen him safely into the ground,” she said, changing the subject, “and I’m going to have a cup of tea with my friend Phoebe and the children.”

“It’s good to have a friend,” he murmured, “a good friend. I’m lucky. I have Jesus as my friend and I can always turn to him, just there:” he pointed to an effigy of his Christ. “He understands, and in his own marvellous way, he helps,” he added.

“He won’t help me,” she assured him, “nothing will help me! The only brightness in my world is the silence. No coughing, no hacking his lungs up, just a terrible silence that fills the space he used to occupy in my life. So if you don’t mind, reverend…”

And she turned and walked away, to the little trail that was already slightly worn in autumn grass, following the coffin. Fred’s coffin. To the hole in the ground which had nothing special to mark it. Just a wooden plate with a number on it. No here lies the last remains of Fred Parfitt, beloved husband of Daisy Parfitt and father to Isabel Parfitt and Brian Parfitt… Just a number. If she could afford it she’d see about a stone with his name on it. But only if she could afford it because with the exception of herself and the toddlers, there was nobody likely to come along and stand by it and mutter words to it, a prayer maybe, a final farewell.

It was annoying but the Reverend Pocock started walking ny her side.

“I have a prayer to help him on his way…” he murmured, “to say at the graveside. Then the Lord wll greet him when he arrives in Heaven.”

Doesn’t he know that there aren’t any words that are going to help him go anywhere, raved though her brain, he’s dead! He’s going nowhere unless its through the digestive system of an adventurous worm once his cheap wooden coffin has rotted away!

“Make it brief,” is all she said, and he did.

Then, on her way back to home on the Winkberby Road where the pavements weren’t finished yet she knew what it was like to feel truly alone living in a world crowded with strangers walking the other way. And that’s what they all seemed to be doing: walking the other way.

Meanwhile, in her house Phoebe was trying to explain to little Isabel what her mother was doing and why she was there looking after them.

“But we know, don’t we Brian?” she asked the brother who lacked the vocabulary to understand why his world was upside down all of a sudden.

“Yes Issy,” he agreed with her because agreeing seemed the best thing to do.

“And mummy says he’s in Heaven now,” she whipsered, and with a little smile, added, “coughing at the feet of Jesus, cough, cough, cough…”

“Cough, Issy,” nodded little Brian.

Phoebe shook her head. “Not any more, Isabel,” she said gently, “when you’re dead all horrid things like coughs come to an end and you’re at peace, and happy. Daddy was happy, wasn’t he?” Happy to have the perfect wife, that’s what he was, but it didn’t stop him dying, did it?

“That’s so good,” smiled Isabel, “it’s good that he’s happy. Then we can all be happy…”

Then Daisy opened the front door and walked in.

“Well, that’s over,” she said as if a whole world had dissolved with all its people morphing into a ghostly crowd and melting into dust.

“And Auntie Phoebe says daddy’s happy,” smiled Isabel.

At first Daisy wanted to shout that nobody’s got the right to be happy ever again, then she saw the expression on Phoebe’s pretty face, and nodded.

“She’s right,” she nodded, “daddy’s happy like he’s never been before.”

© Peter Rogerson 22.02.23

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