Death
6 April 2006
Their father had died and the day of the funeral was as the days before the First World War. Calm but tense. No one would believe how close violence was to hand. Unprecedented violence. But as yet no trenches had been dug. No armies had been mobilised. If someone had dared say openly that they could see war on the horizon they would have been shouted down as an agitator.
And yet it was to come all too soon.
But not that day.
That day was sadness, tears, joy, and memories.
A coffin. Sitting in state in a way the man never did.
A church. The church of his small town. A town of no consequence. A town founded by his great grandfather.
It had been four decades since he had seen the inside of this church; since the baptism of his youngest son. A baptism that was the done thing, but had no further bearing on events.
The church was a stranger, but now it loomed crucial to him. His penultimate resting place.
The turnout was impressive. I had not expected it. To grandchildren a grandfather is special and yours. But hundreds of people turned out that day to declare he was theirs too.
Someone had anticipated the crowds though. There was a marquee erected adjoining the church. Those unable or unwilling to endure the church crush sought refuge there and watched proceedings on a screen.
The cheap seats in the grandstand.
The eulogies demonstrated I knew less of him than I thought. There were moments of clarity where what was said concurred with what I knew. Stories were told of which I had personal experience. But for the most part, it was a different world, a different man.
A young man.
Once.
A long time ago.
Everyone is at some point, but I had never thought of him that way.
I watched his children cry.
I wondered if he would have been ashamed that he had raised a bunch of softies.
He had always been economic with his emotions.
Each generation below was less so: while his children only cried, we grandchildren wept.
He did have emotions, but they were calloused in.
You can’t live a life like his, one that had so many people want a piece of it by the end, and not end it calloused.
But did they have to be so thick?
I wondered often if he knew what he was going to leave behind? If he had a thought of the pain?
Of the war that would come after him.
That he would cause.
Perhaps he just did not understand what was to come. He took a decision, and had clear reasons. It was a cold decision, but not wrong. Not to him.
His five children all spoke.
The eldest, Robyn, spoke first. She was dark haired like her youngest brother. The five siblings bookended by darkness. She spoke with the raging fire of love. Her mouth seemed to snarl but her words sung. She ended with an image of her father, on the flatbed of his ute on the top of the hill surrounded in all directions by land which called to him.
The next, Hilary. Her blonde hair turning to grey. Her accent veering worryingly close to American. It was a contagion unavoidable after twenty years in Seattle, but twanged awkwardly in her home town. She spoke of their upbringing. Even I heard the euphemisms.
Jan held her rake-like body tall and terse. She spoke matter-of-factly, as only someone conversant in death can.
She spoke of the recent past.
Of his refusal to slow down.
To be any less than he always was.
My father, Michael. The youngest. He spoke through tears, and love and hurt. He spoke of the good and the bad. Honest and ruthless and loving. But loved? Probably. The pain was clear. Perhaps the child who achieved the most. But here in this inconsequential town, consequential achievements meant little.
He spoke of his father’s other achievements.
Of his work in the community.
He was a justice of the peace.
He was a pillar of the community.
The community our family has always been critical to.
We have always been here.
Then the other son spoke. John. This is a story replete with Johns. I myself am one of many. But I am unimportant in the long list of Johns this story contains. This John is one of the two critical ones: the one who started it all, and the one who ended it.
This John, is the ender.
He was a man whose former handsomeness had long departed. His cauliflower ears now visible under thinning hair, long retreated from the top of his head. But still he was big and powerful. He made Michael look like a runt. He spoke, as we all knew he would, of the farm.
Now this is what counts. Stock numbers, acreage, harsh winters and harsher summers. An empire in number eight wire. The annexation of neighbouring properties telling of imperial wisdom. Darwinian in more ways than one. A lifetime of achievements.
He died out there, amongst it all. John had found him, his dogs had appeared to John like Hermes. Even his eye-dog Ned, mutely spoke volumes. Pleaded.
Loyalty. To the last it was there.
Help him.
But by the time John found him there was nothing to be done.
It was no surprise to anyone.
He had had angina for years.
This wasn’t the first attack.
It wasn’t the fifth.
But it was the last.
He died as he had always intended.
He died as he lived.
Farming.
Then she sang.
To palpable disapproval.
She was a fine singer.
Her operatic voice was too large for the small church.
It was stirring and truthful and real.
It was the singer not the song that raised hackles.
Michael leaned in to me.
“Son, if that woman sings at my funeral, I’m going to haunt the shit out of you.”
I think Gran heard.
I saw her smile.
Coincidence or conspiracy?
