Putting the ‘fun’ into ‘funeral’
(The main hall of the Baumschulenweg Krematorium: Berlin, Germany)
To sum up all the events that have occurred since the last post is a huge task, but I think I can just about manage if I keep it short. Maz and I were awake for almost twenty four hours straight. Yesterday was the day of Jochen’s funeral, characterised by its intensity; the stunning autumnal weather, free flowing myriad emotions and meeting so many new people with a propensity for celebrating.
Maz and I were the welcoming committee for the funeral and therefore had to arrive an hour early to ensure proceedings would run smoothly. After an hour of chilly travelling time, we approached it from a long road lined with trees, the frost biting every bit of us. It was the coldest day of this autumn and the frosty leaves touched by the sun were all dripping onto the pavements. We practiced and corrected our speeches in the huge atrium hall you can see here, whispering our lines and having them repeated by the acoustics. Once people began to arrive, we shook many hands and I operated as toilet pointer outer – my German stretching far enough for that, at least.
The service itself was different to any other I have attended for many reasons, but especially for the absence of a priest or minister. It was very much a celebration of Jochen and the whole service reflected that. Music held the memorial together along with a series of tributes from family and friends. His godaughter gave a lovely speech in German, followed by Matthias with a touching bilingual offering to warm the stage for me and my poem in English. I wasn’t as nervous as I anticipated, but by the time I reached the last line of my poem, I realised that I couldn’t have done any more. It dawned on me at that moment that I was now linked to every person in the room and that with the last word of mine into the microphone, I would be saying goodbye. By the time I got to my seat, the tissues were out and I entered into the full spirit of a good funeral by having a good old cry.
However, don’t be fooled into thinking that it was all desperately tragic -there were some cracking stories told and I laughed out loud repeatedly during the service. Afterwards, we traveled to Jochen’s flat en masse with much chatter and many new introductions. The food was abundant and the wine and beer flowed freely. Being a speaker at the ceremony had some advantages here; anyone that approached me at the party spoke to me in English which negated my fumbled explanations of mein Deutsch being ‘beknackt’.* Every person I met was welcoming, lovely and wanted to speak not only about Jochen, but of Glasgow, Berlin, the service, and other more general, informal subjects. That was until the night dissolved into chaos.
After several hours, the crowd of people in Jochen’s flat subsided and Maz and I left to join several people for dinner including some Glasgow School of Art Architecture professors and tutors – almost all of whom I had met only that day. The combination of Germans and Scots when merrymaking is wondrous in its explosive ability to generate an excess of noise (mainly laughter), clinking of beer glasses and a mutual appreciation of decent food. Needless to say, after three ‘metres’ of Kölsch had been consumed by the attendees, the mood was decidedly merry. From there, a crack team of six were left. We decided the night was still young at 11pm and moved to a bar where we could continue our inane conversations and laugh even harder with each other.
As if we hadn’t already done enough celebrating, it was decided that a spot of dancing would go down very well. It was surreal being on a crowded dancefloor with Maz and a selection of GSA tutors. It was so much fun in fact, that nobody realised how much time had passed until it reached 5am. It was at this point that we finally left to retreat home – hugs and boisterous punches all round. Maz and I managed to get home to sleep at 6am, hence I am rather tired today. What a funeral.
* Translates as lousy / crappy.
– Today Rosie is doing lots of things, but all the while recovering from the hijinks of yesterday in Berlin, Germany –
