funerals at work
Peter died last week - he'd been one of our depts programmers/publishers/fixers - he'd been full time until a couple of years ago when he went part-and-working from home due to hospital, mobility, operations, etc (cancer, would've been 56 this week). We'd been told the funeral arrangements for anyone who was thinking of attending last week, and I hadn't thought much about it apart from Lissy getting a condolences book for people at work to sign to give to his family. (yes, super-organised is one word for that girl)
So lunchtime rolls around. I'd been spending the morning contemplating how many times it was possible to sacrifice a computer to the Elder Gods - it got so bad at one point I had to turn the sod off, and even that process took fifteen minutes. Idly browsing flist, push back from desk in preparation to wander out to see if anything strikes my fancy, and Tom suddenly appears and asks if I'm coming since he's going in half an hour, and has anyone seen Abdul because the first set of directions he'd emailed had been wrong.
See me blink. A lot. Quick discussion with Lissy, she points out that of our lot (post-accept) I'm the one who even vaguely knows him due to longevity, and I'd regret not going. So I go 'errrr', some more, sigh, and then do the 'if the Apocalypse happens, don't call me, and smite the Liverpool lot when necessary because they will press any big red buttons nearby' spiel to Matt, and go off to Manor park.
Biiiiig cemetery for most of London. Some explaining to Abdul of what would probably be happening (Somalian, Muslim) during the ceremony. Roz was there too. Turns out Pete is extremely atheist, so we were crossing our fingers that the family would respect that. Very quiet ceremony, quite nice, lots of humanism and hope stuff. Turns out Peter was extremely compartmentalised - due to not talking much about himself, there was a lot in the speech that had people blinking - work lot were going '...did you know he was seriously political? Musical? Wheh?' his family were going 'Peter? A grown-up?' No singing or prayers. Adjourned to Golden Fleece five minutes down the road. (due to this pub's positioning, we suspect it gets the majority of funeral lunches in that area) Spent an hour or so talking to his family members about, well, the weirdness of funerals and a bit about Peter.
Not much else to say. Still odd to think he's not going to be there getting irascible at us for not being extremely explicit in our notation about once a fortnight.
Oh, and the family started using the condolence book we'd given them from work to fill out their own memories.
So lunchtime rolls around. I'd been spending the morning contemplating how many times it was possible to sacrifice a computer to the Elder Gods - it got so bad at one point I had to turn the sod off, and even that process took fifteen minutes. Idly browsing flist, push back from desk in preparation to wander out to see if anything strikes my fancy, and Tom suddenly appears and asks if I'm coming since he's going in half an hour, and has anyone seen Abdul because the first set of directions he'd emailed had been wrong.
See me blink. A lot. Quick discussion with Lissy, she points out that of our lot (post-accept) I'm the one who even vaguely knows him due to longevity, and I'd regret not going. So I go 'errrr', some more, sigh, and then do the 'if the Apocalypse happens, don't call me, and smite the Liverpool lot when necessary because they will press any big red buttons nearby' spiel to Matt, and go off to Manor park.
Biiiiig cemetery for most of London. Some explaining to Abdul of what would probably be happening (Somalian, Muslim) during the ceremony. Roz was there too. Turns out Pete is extremely atheist, so we were crossing our fingers that the family would respect that. Very quiet ceremony, quite nice, lots of humanism and hope stuff. Turns out Peter was extremely compartmentalised - due to not talking much about himself, there was a lot in the speech that had people blinking - work lot were going '...did you know he was seriously political? Musical? Wheh?' his family were going 'Peter? A grown-up?' No singing or prayers. Adjourned to Golden Fleece five minutes down the road. (due to this pub's positioning, we suspect it gets the majority of funeral lunches in that area) Spent an hour or so talking to his family members about, well, the weirdness of funerals and a bit about Peter.
Not much else to say. Still odd to think he's not going to be there getting irascible at us for not being extremely explicit in our notation about once a fortnight.
Oh, and the family started using the condolence book we'd given them from work to fill out their own memories.