A sad but uplifting time

David and I arrived home a couple of days ago from Waitara where we have been for the last fortnight. 

My lovely brother in law Murray died on 2 December after the remission from his Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia ended and another form of cancer came rampaging in with large tumours on his brain. From diagnosis to his passing was only 4 weeks. 

That time was a blessing as it gave all of his family, his church community and his friends time to be with him before he went into hospital; it gave everyone time to come to terms with him dying and to start to grieve.

Murray was considerate to the last - there are a number of family birthdays in December and Murray avoided dying on any of them. And Dee made sure his funeral didn't coincide with any of them either. (Back in 1997, our mum died on one grandson's birthday, and Dad unthinkingly arranged her funeral for Dee's birthday ...)

Murray's funeral was very special and unique to the family. As we were still in Covid restrictions, the limit was 100 people in an open air funeral service. And by my calculations we came in slightly under that.

Murray's son Kurt, his whangai son Glenn, and son in law Gerard built the coffin, and his son Jonathan lined it.

A woman from the church made a korowai (a cloak) to be draped over the coffin - a singular honour for a pakeha. 

The service was the first Christian one that I've attended which actually felt meaningful - and that was, I think, because it was truly focused on Murray and how special he was as a man of faith, a family man, a friend, a member of his church. It is the first funeral I have been at where the church leaders leading the service have both been in tears.

Kurt read a tribute from Murray's brother and spoke on his own behalf; Glenn read a poem from Murray's sister Ann; Nicola (Murray's daughter) spoke movingly about her relationship with Murray from when he met and married her mum when Nicola was 12, and she spoke about his battle with depression arising from multiple accidents and concussions, and she implored all men in the audience to seek help, to talk about their feelings, to not bottle up what was going on for them, to let others in. I spoke about who he had been to my sister, to our family, the multiplicity of roles he had, the personas he wore, and how he moved through the world having an impact on everyone. His daughter in law Charlotte and his grand-daughter Ziana sang with Michael the church leader Murray's favourite hymns - such beautiful voices.

Pens were provided and people wrote on his coffin when the service ended. 

There was a haka performed as his coffin was loaded on to the Dodge Ram and strapped down. And the cortege was led out of the grounds and to the crematorium by Kurt on his motorbike.

It was peaceful, uplifting, sad, kind and overwhelming. And it was worthy of him.