Chapter 11 – Ceremony

Eventually Reverend Fanshaw took his place before us, people quieted down and the service started. It began with a prayer about God's love and power over all creation, and then he announced, "We are gathered here together today to commend one of your faithful, into your ever-loving and ever-lasting arms and eternal life in your spirit." He had a fine and strong voice, but it was not overpowering in the small room; just the proper volume and feeling.

I found myself staring at my mother's face as light music was then played on an upright piano from the rear of the chapel. Louisa's hand stole across to me and took my hand, her warm fingers interlacing with mine, as her hip and elbow rested against mine. I sighed and Louisa rested her head against my shoulder for a few seconds before she sat up again.

After the music ended the priest prayed, "Eternal God, grant to your servant and our sister, Margaret Penrose Ellingham, and to we here gathered and those who cannot be, your peace beyond all understanding. Give us faith, the comfort of your presence, and the words to say to one another and to you, as we gather in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord."

Then Fanshaw went on reading some bit of scripture, Psalms, I think, about light and salvation, strength and so on, but the words blurred in my ears. What was I feeling? What ought I to feel? Relief? Regret? Sadness? Or simply nothing?

The ceremony went on and I still felt very disconnected. It was so unreal, but it was real and tangible. The body of my mother, who was dead, lay in that casket. The spark of life that made her the person she was is now gone with her last heartbeat, a last breath, and then when the synapses in her brain died she was gone. Just like that a lifetime of memories vanished with those dying neurons. I've seen death, up close and personal. I was a medical student on an oncology ward and watched an old man smile as he breathed his last. What did that mean to him? A smile? But then he gasped and lay still. The ward doctor held his stethoscope to the man's chest for a minute, felt for a pulse in his neck as well, peeled open an eyelid and peered into the man's eye using a penlight to check for the pupillary reflex. Then he bade me come forward to repeat it all; to see for myself as part of my training the passing of another human being. Death in the wrinkled face of that old man.

And of course, in the operating theater, rarer, but possible, a heart attack during surgery was not unknown, a cerebral vascular blockage, or more horrific when during cardiac bypass a major artery burst right at the heart. The warm blood had sprayed across the table, and we could not render aid quickly enough. Later we found that our procedure had not failed but that a congenital thinning of an artery wall was present, and one little jump of pressure had torn the tissue open.

Jim whats-his-name dying on the train back from London. Snoring and then he had stopped breathing. Just like that. Gone literally in a heartbeat, or lack of.

And then when my old tutor Dr. Newton made a mistake during surgery, we nearly lost the patient, just last year. But I was able to step in and help. That man lived because I had averted the end of life.

So, I knew death and had fought that monster my entire professional life to keep a person in the here and now. Breathing, with a heartbeat, and able to perceive and act, eat, sleep, read, write, walk and dream. But eventually due to disease, accident, or just old age we succumb. All of us will go down that path.

Fanshaw prayed on about sin and forgiveness, and I knew that my mother knew about sin and cruelty. Cruelty both physical and mental. Locking me under the stairs in that tight cupboard, a slap across the face, a box to the ear, screaming in my face, or worse, just walking away leaving me wondering what new pain she might inflict on me. She and my dad had abandoned me in an empty house on Christmas Day as a boy and worse, just last week she had appeared to my concussed brain in my wrecked car to abuse and taunt me, telling me for the last time that I was worthless and a failure. She had not been with me in the crashed car, I knew that. There were no ghosts, I believed, but her words were an echo of all her hatred towards me, so the long halls of memory were dredged and injured as I was, those memories had surfaced and manifested that hallucination. Her smug expression and wheedling tone telling me to give up.

Louisa wiped her eyes and nose on a tissue, her hand was holding mine and not letting go. I loved her so much; so very much. I stole another glance at the body in the casket, and wondered again why my mother was the way she was. Had she been neglected and abused growing up as an only child? I did not know her parents very well at all, but on the surface they had seemed normal, if a bit distant. Had girlhood experiences formed her coldness? That lack of empathy which resulted in her being so self-centered?

My wife was exactly the polar opposite of my mother in all things. Why could my mother not act like a caring human being to me? She blamed her pregnancy with me and my birth as an effective dissolution of her marriage relations with my father. I shook my head as I recalled that day in our Portwenn home when she dropped that bombshell on me. Unwanted? Rejected? Even before my birth? It still hurt terribly. But it had explained so much - all her coldness and anger towards me – all the hate.

Memory is a wonderful thing, allowing us to retain and use useful lessons. So, we can exist in this world and if we do so choose to prosper using the lessons. What lesson could I take from these moments in this small and too cool room, with the dead body of my biological parent laid out in it?

At that point I began to pay more attention to the proceedings. More prayers to God asking for forgiveness for the deceased, and then reciting the Lord's Prayer which I joined in. Eventually Fanshaw talked about Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead and how we all will be raised incorruptible if we but believed.

I was a man of science and medicine. These were tools of my profession which were based on facts and not faith. Did I believe in religion? I was a rather casual churchgoer and so was Louisa, but as our children grew perhaps it might be best to attend a church, if only for their education in the culture of religion. And although I did not believe in miracles, I had seen patients rally at strange times when they either had been praying or someone was praying over them. Miracle of prayer? Or merely coincidence? I didn't know. I'd also brought people back from the brink of death through modern medicine. Was that not a miracle? Or just a triumph of science and technology?

Then Fanshaw looked straight at me and smiled encouragingly. "Now, we will hear a few words from Margaret's son, Dr. Martin Ellingham."

I rose, having to withdraw Louisa's clinging hand, shot my suitcoat cuffs, touched my tie and walked up to the front of the room, my back to the coffin, for I carried not to see it.

Clearing my throat, I looked over the assemblage. Most facial expressions were bland and fixed, only two showing any real emotion; just Louisa and that Wilkes fellow. Louisa was silently crying but Wilkes was grimacing, with his eyes boring into mine, and I saw his Adam's apple move as he took a big gulp.

I had used Joan's funeral to instruct the group assembled then about better cardiac and bodily fitness. Lay off fatty and fried foods, drink fewer alcoholic drinks, and get more exercise, but here with this lot? What message could I possibly convey at this funeral ceremony?

"I am Margaret's son," I began. "You may have heard my mother speak about me and I am quite certain she most likely told you by inference she was a perfect mother and I the perfect child and therefore am a skilled physician of adult age."

Louisa was now staring at me with concern, for I saw her bite her lip.

I went on. "I was not a perfect son to my mother, for the truth was that she was a far less than perfect parent to me. She put up a good front to the world I assume, but in realty she was cold and abrasive as a mother figure. She took no opportunity ever to show towards me any normal semblance of maternal affection or love. Never. Not once."

Now the group was staring directly at me, some with mouths gaping in shock and others in anger.

So, I said, "And there were very long periods, years, when we were totally estranged and only late in life when she thought I might… assist her in financial matters after the death of my father… only then did she contact me." I looked around the room. "So, I will now suggest that if any of you have harmed family or friends in the past that you make haste to repair those relationships and do so earnestly and with sincere affection. For in the end, what will any of us have but family? So, vileness…" I sighed, "has no place at all in any family relations and neither is hatred, abuse, or neglect."

Louisa fixed me with a faint smile, so I continued. "I have been extremely fortunate to have been the grateful recipient of actual love from three women in my life. One was my Aunt Joan, Joan Norton, my father's younger sister, who did everything she could when I was a boy during summer holidays living with her and her husband Phil. They… made an attempt to reverse the damage done to me by both my mother and father. Replace coldness with love. Neglect with kindness." I paused as I saw Louisa's head come up as she looked right at me, with a proud look on her face.

Then I said, "The second woman is my Aunt Ruth, Dr. Ruth Ellingham, who has helped me deal with personal… difficulty… and throughout that process that has been supportive, helpful and dare I say loving in her own way."

Then I smiled at my wife, and she was the only person I was aware of in that cold room. "The third woman is my wife Louisa Glasson Ellingham, and she is the mother of our two children." I paused. "She is the light of my life and the dearest…" I had to stop again for what I felt was overwhelming, but I could go on after a few seconds. "Louisa is the most loving and loyal person I have ever known. She has never given up on me or our relationship, and Heaven knows I have given her plenty of reasons to do otherwise. I love her with all my heart, and I shall love her to the end of my days. It is only through the love of these three women that I can stand before you today."

"In many ways… Margaret Ellingham was ill-suited to be a parent, and certainly not able to realize that she could have, ought to have, asked for help in that area. She and my father chose not to take that path so…" I sighed, "here I stand as a witness to her life and am making a testament – a plea – to not be like her. Not ever. Yet… had she acted like a normal mother and parent I would not be standing here this day and telling you these things. So, perhaps her life… what I have told you… may do some good… now." I looked around at the small audience and they were nodding heads, mostly, and two or three had joined Louisa in leaking tears. "I believe that my mother was a terribly unhappy person through most of her life. Now… well now she is at rest."

Then I turned around to look at my mother's face and caught a glimpse of the reverend who was standing at the pulpit trying to be invisible. There my mother lay, cold and quiet, and she could no longer or would ever hurt me ever again. "Goodbye," I said to her body and then I returned to my seat.