No time to knit!

Arghhh, I am living in non knitting hell! I've got yarn, I've got needles (I've even just ordered the knitpicks options set - which I have to have delivered to someone in the USA who will then ship it on to me). However, I have no time!

I have on the needles Soleil from Knitty. I sortof hoped I might finish it before the end of the world cup - no hope not with my family stuff taking up the time. I did, however, manage to complete the short rows over the boobage area this past weekend in between everything else. However, I find it annoying to knit a few stitches here, another few there. I'd rather do complete rows at a time.

Friday 7th July was the funeral for my Godfather. I stayed over at my mothers the night before (its just easier to do that when having to get her out of the house in the morning), and picked my brother up along the way before heading out. We arrived at the church with about 5 minutes to spare. The funeral cars and the funeral director were standing outside. I passed him some cards of sympathy for his wife and her family and in we went.

Well, OK one should probably never criticise a funeral or anything like that but frankly I've no idea where they dug that priest up from. He was dreadful. He had clearly not done his research, Kevin had helped to build the church and had been a founding member. None of that seemed to be mentioned, it was just glossed over. Not only that this priest was painfully slow at speaking - I guess he thought he was putting on a soothing voice but it was incredible! He would say 3 words of a sentence, then pause in a heavily pregnant manner, then say another 3 words of the sentence and pause again in the same heavily pregnant manner.

Quite honestly, I wondered if we would ever actually reach the end of the service. He was also extremely difficult to hear. The organ player was.. well.. erm... unable to hit the right notes? I think this probably best describes it. The melody part was note perfect, but the main composition of everything he played was like a child bashing randomly on a keyboard.

Anyway, Kevin lay in his coffin and I managed to stay just fine, no tears, no pangs, no heartstrings tugged at even when I remembered him being at Dad's funeral, coming out of the church straight to me, with tears in his eyes he embraced me in the biggest hug he could muster. It was only after the funeral mass, when I went outside and saw his wife, giving her a hug I welled up and was unable to even utter the usual "I'm so sorry" and "If there is anything we can do" - I couldn't speak.

He was always there, always. He was my dad's best friend, he rewired the house with my dad using a 2 shilling booklet they had borrowed from a library - I believe the wiring still holds to this day! He organised for us to get a bath - we moved into the home I was to know for the rest of my life, and my parents wanted to get a new bath. Well the church where he was to have his funeral mass, was being built and they were also building a new presbetary. The old presbetary had a cast iron bath in it - it was to be thrown out. He suggested that my parents buy that bath - they did and Kevin organised a man with a van to deliver it. That bath stood in our hall way for several years after. Our school bags and shoes and PE kits would all be thrown into the bath when we arrived home.

It was 2 or 3 years later before Kevin helped my father install the bath. We missed it being in the hall as a catch all for our baggage as we came in from school.

Kevin had been married, and had 4 children. Three boys, one girl. His wife had suffered from some mental health issues and had passed away in the '70's. One of his sons, Johnny, was a downs syndrome child who spent much time in a facility in Sussex where they cared for him. Kevin would take him home for weekends at a time, and often they would come to visit us.

Of the two elder boys, one was diagnosed as Schizophrenic. He later committed suicide. This was followed not too long after by the other son doing the same. He would have given anything to have had his sons back. It was an extremely sad time for him.

He had been to Dunkirk during world war II - he rarely, if ever, spoke of this. It had affected him quite strongly.

His daughter, Catherine has a son of her own. Kevin re-married in the late '70's to the widow of another friend, Julia. They had become close over the years, Kevin had helped to care for his friend Tim and took him to church regularly.

What I found one of the saddest things was that Catherine was pushed out, and made to feel unwelcome by his new family. Catherine very much speaks her mind, a bit like me I guess, which doesn't go down well (as I well know!). At his funeral, she was pushed out and not even told of the wake being at a local pub. This was the first time I'd met her - or at least remembered meeting her and she seemed OK to me - a little outspoken but she seemed alright.

In his later life, in the last couple of years, Julia couldn't cope with his failing health and age so Kevin was shipped off to a home. My opinion of this is that it was unnecessary. Dementia was the reason given. However, when going to visit him my mother showed up carrying an old stick he had brought for her from Ireland many many years ago. It was a piece of blackthorn, not dissimilar to a shillelagh. She walked up to him and he was sitting down. Looking at the stick, before he even saw it was her, he said "I brought that stick back from Ireland for you!"

He recognised her immediately and they talked for quite some time. My brother, who went with her, said that it was a horrible place a place of no stimulation - a place to rot away. He apparently had taken a fall at Easter and had been in hospital for some time. Mum had been calling his wife to arrange a time to visit - she had not returned the calls. Finally, two weeks ago, on Wednesday evening (28th June) she called to tell my mother that Kevin had passed away.

We never got to see him alive. It was a sad day, we went on to the burial and stood over the brief ceremony before heading off. We did not go to the wake in the local pub, Mum decided it would not be something she could face going to so we went to Morden and had fish and chips for lunch instead.

We went back to our family home, had a cup of tea and talked much of Kevin and our memories of him. I shall miss him dearly but I do have a great deal of very fond memories of him. As my mother said - last Friday was the end of an era.