Ours is vaguely Irish / Catholic ...
So a Requiem Mass. The arrival of the coffin, the mass, the procession to the cemetery, the internment. And memorial mentions at subsequent masses.
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Memories:
Uncle Walter was married to Aunty Kath, but he was agnostic. He always accompanied her to Mass, and sat at the back. When he died, Kath asked the parish priest if he would officiate the funeral, he said of course, gave a wonderful eulogy, luckily he knew them both. He insisted Walter had every right, which in my book is as it should be.
Wake:
We do't do that so much now. A gathering after, tea and sandwiches, a few drinks ... my dad told me some riotous tales of 'auld Eire', with open coffin parties.
Dad used to play the fiddle in an Irish folk group. One pub was well attended by seminary priests at Allen Hall in Chelsea. Word came via friends that they wanted to attend the funeral, mum said OK. The church was packed out with priests!
When mum died, we (four siblings & partners) were all round her bed in the hospital room. I read the Office of the Dead.
Went to a funeral of a family friend, a nun. Whole (small) community there, of course. And a burial in an unmarked grave 'with her sisters' in the convent grounds.
When Auntie Kath died, she wanted an Irish flag on her grave. I'd forgotten, and didn't remember she said it until the last minute. So we stopped at every Irish pub on the way to the funeral, knocking on the door. 'Have you got an Irish flag?" "D'you know what time it is?" "It's for me aunt, from Tipperary, she's being buried today." "Hang on, I'll have a look."
Or, more Irish still: "have you an Irish flag?" "Come back when we're open" (explain circumstance) "Where in Tipp?" "Thurles." "What's her family name?" "Ryan-Sayers" "Ah, Jasus, but didn't we used to have a Clonmel man ..." "I gotta go, I've got a funeral to attend!" (Found a flag in a fancy dress shop!)
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Family friend John & wife (he played banjo, mandolin, tin-whistle in the band) visit their family at home every year, bring back a bottle of moonshine, and call round to share a dram. What follows is a long detailing of who's died, who's ill, who's in trouble ... the Irish have a great sense of humour, but sheesh, can they do morbid!
I might well end up with a bagpiper playing 'The Flowers of the Forest" at my grave. Opting for a naturist funeral ... ideally in a forest somewhere ... Take me up and dump me in some remote Scottish highland ...
In fact, in honour of my IO pal Wil, Take me up to the far Highlands, build a tall structure, hoist me atop it, and burn the thing down at dusk on a dark and dour winter's afternoon of banked-up cloud, with a piper playing the lament from a nearby hilltop ... now, that's class
(If someone could arrange an eagle, wheeling overhead, that would be grand)
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