The Gallery - 24 hours

The theme at Sticky Fingers is 24 hours.  I am grateful for The Gallery, because over the last few months it has given me the chance to think about the events leading up to yesterday.  Often in a round about way, but in a significant way too.

Yesterday was my mum's funeral.  The longest and saddest but also the most special and inspiring 24 hours.  We chose a humanist ceremony, and it was outstanding.  It was such a celebration of my mum's life, and marked perfectly the ways that she will live on in the lives she has influenced.  I soaked up every last drop of stories from her friends and family.  In 24 hours I suddenly felt I had this amazing bird's eye view of her life, lots of through lines came together and I had a wonderful sense of her, as much more than my mum.

                                         

This is the picture, taken by my Dad, we chose for the Order of Service.  The image that we contemplated during the few minutes silence after her eulogy.   Everyone felt it was incredibly powerful, the perfect image. Some people prayed, others reflected.   Looking at it was very sad, I think there a real a mixture of emotions there, it was taken after her first operation to remove a brain tumour, when she was doing remarkably well - and rocking her new short hairdo - but she knew that the cancer would probably return.  We had got together as a family, with my brother's girlfriend's family and it was a magical weekend.  My mum's smile, positivity, supportiveness and all round loveliness are all in this image, and I found that hugely comforting.

I'm very tired, so this post by no means does the day justice, but the 24 hours themselves were an amazing tribute to my mum. 

In terms of my own pictures, I took this to capture the sea of cards that arrived before the funeral and I took one of my dad, my brother and his girlfriend, and my brother took one of me and Mr A.  We were waiting nervously for the car to pick us up, suddenly we realised how smart we looked and someone remarked that if mum had been here she would have been busy taking photos of everyone.  So we took them in her honour, but I am not sure it's right to post them.