Eulogy

Thursday, 1 pm. The village gathers in the church to pay its final respects to C, who took his own life just over a week ago. C was one of the good guys, one of the real characters of the village, a M*tfield man through and through. He was someone who always greeted you with a cryptic joke and a glint in his eye, someone you would bump into in the pub, share a pint and a laugh with whilst often straining to battle your way through his broader than broad accent in order to find out just what the joke was. He was warm, generous, larger than life: a gentle giant. He was also someone for whom storm-clouds gathered, whose black dog days were overpowering and painfully real.

Cars lined every inch of the street before his funeral. Apt for a mechanic, I thought to myself. But it was also evidence that this village man had friendships far beyond the village boundaries. I approached the church with just minutes to spare before the service started. Standing room only. People stood outside, dotted amongst the gravestones, the crowds spilling over from the church: people who knew they wouldn't get to hear the service but wanted to be there for C regardless.

I squeezed in at the back with my dad, held on to him for dear life. Listened while the vicar talked about C, his life in the village from the young boy who used to walk around with a guinea pig up his jumper to the C we all knew in adulthood. The C who bumped into the vicar after a recent spate of funerals and said "Planting another one, are we vicar?". Glint in his eye. "One day, you'll be planting me!". C's way of saying hello, it seems, was to mock you gently. I also listened as his son, bewildered with still-raw grief, battled through his tears to make a simple declaration of love, and while his brother bravely and calmly delivered the eulogy. I looked around at the crammed church: the village was there in force: biker chicks with long black hair and leather boots, mechanics in work overalls, farmers, the usual suspects from the village and the Women's Institute and an old granny in a grey cardigan and bright orange crocs. And a multitude of faces I didn't even recognise: fathers of childhood friends, children of older friends, people whose lives he had touched. So much love, so many friends, bravery, confusion and tears. Did he know? Would it have made any difference if he had?

We sang "All Things Bright and Beautiful": a song that has me choking back vomit when people have it at their weddings. But a song that was perfect for C's funeral. I sang it with hot salty tears running in a steady stream down my face. I hoped for a while that the vicar was right, that C has found his way to a better place where there is no more pain. Outside, Doreen said to me "You just hope, don't you, that he can look down and see how many people are here, how much he was loved".

The day itself was like the hymn: bright and beautiful. The Suffolk skyline after a storm has a bare beauty all of its own. Patches of bright blue sky, raw and cleansing, forcing its way between cotton wool clouds. But it was C's day, and the sky knew it too. Storm clouds, sombrely dressed in funereal black, formed their own guard of honour on the horizon. And there, in the middle of it all, a half-formed rainbow, the brightest I've ever seen, stretched up towards the heavens.

I say my own silent prayer, "Rest in peace, big guy".