Double Funeral

Written on Saturday 26/09/09

The last time I went to a double funeral was in September 1984, when my very good friend, Reece Redcliffe, and his ex-girlfriend, Debbie Van Boom, in twisted Romeo and Juliet fashion, shared a funeral ceremony. The specifics of their deaths, up until today, cause me immense grief. The newspapers reported that Reece had fatally stabbed, first Debbie, and then himself. Imagine the horror of finding the lifeless, bloodied bodies, permanently altering the tranquility of the suburban home and shaking the entire Glenhaven community to its core! Reece and Debbie had been friends since they were tiny children, and their families had been close. When they started dating, as young adults, everyone thought it would be a fairy tale ending, white wedding, happily ever after, with lots of little Reeces and Debbies running around….. But it was not to be. After quite a few break ups, they’d each moved on, and Debbie was engaged to someone else.

So many stories abound, as to what transpired, that fateful day of 3 September 1984, but only the people present in that kitchen would know the truth, two of them now dead. So what is my theory? That a third person encountered them, a disagreement ensued, which got seriously out of control, and the third person put an end to the lives of the two vibrant, passionate, popular young people, best friends since childhood. Interesting that someone close to one of the parties involved not only didn’t pitch at the funeral, but went missing immediately afterwards, severing all contact with the family. Interesting that nobody put two and two together and questioned the police about their shoddy work.

Those of us who discussed and shared this theory had gone through so much pain, that it was never on anyone’s agenda to go the public route with correcting the ugly stories that had been splashed all over the newspapers. We all knew, without a doubt, that Reece would never have got angry enough to hurt, let alone kill, Debbie. I would sooner believe that fire won’t burn me than to believe that.

But today’s double funeral, of Manuel and Alice Abrahams, my partner’s elderly parents, was entirely different. This couple had been married for 56 years, and had walked a long road together, with a shared progeny of 5 children, 13 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. Their deaths, two days apart, gave their story an extremely unusual ending. I regret to say I didn’t know them well (but that’s another story!), because they sounded like an interesting couple, quite unalike in many ways, and yet their life journeys had intertwined over six decades, which can only bear testimony to a very deep love, one which defied convention.

Funerals are for those left behind. For closure. For the coming together of the clan. For communities to pitch up and show their friendship and support. Funerals have a hierarchy of mourners, identifiable in the pre-arranged seating in the church, the choice of who’ll stand at the entrance and greet people as they arrive. When there’s a drive to a graveyard after the church, it’s identifiable in who sits in the specially provided vehicles that drive immediately behind the hearse, etc. Funerals are where other people, outsiders, scrutinize the family and try to figure out who’s who, who looks exactly like whom, who’s got a baby and isn’t married, who’s looking good, looking old, or simply……looking. Funerals are sometimes where we encounter people we haven’t seen for ages, people we don’t plan to see for ages, and people we now remember why we haven’t seen for ages.

Funerals are occasions to put aside your issues and focus on the matter at hand – being dignified as a mark of respect for those who have passed on to the next realm. Even a day where you shake the hand of someone your life has an unfortunate-connection-by-association with, and feel genuine sympathy for.

One of the priests at the funeral spoke about the vows made at weddings, about staying together ‘until death parts us’, and about the very special nature of today’s double funeral.

He said someone had asked him, on hearing of the double funeral, “Was it an accident?”, and he’d said, “No, it was a miracle.”

The songwriter in me cannot but be struck and moved by the awesome power of a couple dying within two days of each other - there’s nothing accidental about that kind of love!