smokingboot (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smokingboot) wrote2014-11-11 06:25 pm
smokingboot) wrote2014-11-11 06:25 pm
Saying Goodbye
I didn't get to see the poppies. After a night of discomfort, during which I screamed in my sleep and woke poor ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
larians, I woke heavy and did nothing until it was time for the funeral. Even then I left everything late, and had to run around between buses and taxis to get there on time. Got to the cemetery just as a hearse drove in, bearing a coffin laden with a huge floral cross. White, yellow, purple...never seen Steve so dressed up.
The people filed in, how fascinating they were! A venerable booted bohemian wore blue and purple scarves and fabric flowers all twisted into a material mountain on her head; she had brought ivy to give people. An anarchist with gloriously upturned yellow moustaches towered over us, alongside the flying picket lookalike in the brown suit and dapper red sneakers. And there was Steve's beautiful blue eyed friend from years before, and there was the Italian with the exquisite cheekbones.Beyond these were friends and family, old gentle London folk of a kind they tell us don't exist anymore. We waited. An order of service perched on the back of the pew in front of me, like a little menu. It was covered in photos of him. Then they carried his coffin down the aisle; absurd that a wooden box could lend him such sombre majesty. I had not shed one tear for Steve until that moment, and was very fortunate in the kindness of an aged psychonaut who put his arm around me in my distress.
They spoke of Steve. The beautiful blue eyed woman told us of his shyness, his love of Blake, whom she quoted. 'Opposition is true friendship,' was one phrase that everyone could relate to regarding Steve. If that was truly his creed, then he was a very consistent friend to me, cos he delighted in taking the most contradictory stance on everything he could, a perverse brainskipping dilletante, too clever by half...but magnificent though her eulogy was, Steve's cousin said something so extraordinary, that even Blake's poetry and Elgar's Nimrod paled beside it. He talked of Steve living 'A life without bigotry.'
And I wonder, my friend, wherever you are, if you know how rare that is. A life of ideas and music and philosophy, dreaming, writing, science, humour unsullied by personal prejudice or ignorance or petty cruelty.
Mischief and madman, you honour me with your friendship.
Goodnight Steve.
larians, I woke heavy and did nothing until it was time for the funeral. Even then I left everything late, and had to run around between buses and taxis to get there on time. Got to the cemetery just as a hearse drove in, bearing a coffin laden with a huge floral cross. White, yellow, purple...never seen Steve so dressed up. The people filed in, how fascinating they were! A venerable booted bohemian wore blue and purple scarves and fabric flowers all twisted into a material mountain on her head; she had brought ivy to give people. An anarchist with gloriously upturned yellow moustaches towered over us, alongside the flying picket lookalike in the brown suit and dapper red sneakers. And there was Steve's beautiful blue eyed friend from years before, and there was the Italian with the exquisite cheekbones.Beyond these were friends and family, old gentle London folk of a kind they tell us don't exist anymore. We waited. An order of service perched on the back of the pew in front of me, like a little menu. It was covered in photos of him. Then they carried his coffin down the aisle; absurd that a wooden box could lend him such sombre majesty. I had not shed one tear for Steve until that moment, and was very fortunate in the kindness of an aged psychonaut who put his arm around me in my distress.
They spoke of Steve. The beautiful blue eyed woman told us of his shyness, his love of Blake, whom she quoted. 'Opposition is true friendship,' was one phrase that everyone could relate to regarding Steve. If that was truly his creed, then he was a very consistent friend to me, cos he delighted in taking the most contradictory stance on everything he could, a perverse brainskipping dilletante, too clever by half...but magnificent though her eulogy was, Steve's cousin said something so extraordinary, that even Blake's poetry and Elgar's Nimrod paled beside it. He talked of Steve living 'A life without bigotry.'
And I wonder, my friend, wherever you are, if you know how rare that is. A life of ideas and music and philosophy, dreaming, writing, science, humour unsullied by personal prejudice or ignorance or petty cruelty.
Mischief and madman, you honour me with your friendship.
Goodnight Steve.