At my mother’s funeral, we stood in a circle and sang nursery rhymes.
None of the toddlers she worked with at the pre-school could come to the funeral, of course – that would have been inappropriate. But working with those kids was her life, so singing nursery rhymes was the perfect way to honour that.
The priest had blanched a bit when we told him we’d rather sing ‘Humpty Dumpty’ than ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’. But, of course, he honoured our request, though he looked rather pasty again when my Uncle Jeremy started to warble ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ in a voice caterwauling cats would have been proud of.
Once the service was over and we had buried my mother in a lovely ceremony in the churchyard, my great aunt came up to me and told me how disappointed she had been in the lack of ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’. I told her my mother had hated that rhyme, but she said it didn’t matter, it was one of her favourites.
Some people, it’s all about them.
