It is exactly a year since my partners mother died and 11 years minus a day since my own mother’s death. This awareness of anniversary gives me a strong sense of time passing and life changing around me. And it’s February and cold which makes me want to stay indoors and stare into space. Next week starts Lent or the Quaresma as it is called here. Traditionally it is a period of 40 days preparation for Easter. The three traditional practices are prayer, fasting and almsgiving. This is the first year I have felt such a strong urge to participate in this ritual, but in what way? I am trying to create a daily meditation practice – sitting or walking and making space for some inner peace. I have decided it is time to take a break from wheat products and sugar. I’m not good at self denial but perhaps now is a good time to stop trying to fill myself up and instead, feel the emptiness. I want to test my will to change. I also like the idea I saw somewhere on the internet of having a day/ a week/perhaps a month or more of saying yes to people’s requests for help. Letting go of the feeling that I don’t have enough -time, money, energy – just saying yes and helping when I can.
A friends mother died this week and we went to the Tanatori to spend some time with her. Have I written about these places before? This was the third time I have been to one and I now understand a little better what it is all about. Usually after a death there will be two days when you can offer support to the family at the Tanatori. They tend to be tasteful but sterile places, each family has a room to itself and people spill out into the halls where there are chairs and tables. The death will be recent – that same day or the one before so people are raw and it is a chance to spend time together before the actual funeral. The person who has died is also there but there is no need to see them if you don’t want to or perhaps didn’t know them. The Tanatoris are fairly recent and in the past the community mourning took place at home. I don’t know when the custom changed or why but I can see that it brings people together and when some friends of mine came all the way from Barcelona to see us in the Tanatori after my mother-not-in-law died it was a huge comfort
Funerals in the UK don’t happen so quickly – there are days of preparation and the actual funeral ceremony is the time when friends family and neighbours come together. Afterwards there is food and, hopefully, whisky or a cup of tea and a sandwich. Here refreshments are not part of the process but perhaps this was lost in the transition from home to Tanatori.
I don’t want to sound morbid but I do ask myself sometimes what would I want for my funeral if I died while I was here in Catalunya? And how would my friends and family be able to get here in time?
When you move country these things too go through your head – or through mine, at least in February.
I notice a reluctance to publish this post – I know many people don’t like to talk about or think too much about death. Sorry if this is you……but for me it is part of life and not taboo.
La mort forma part de la vida i no sempre potser estem preparats per aquest moment. A vegades penso en altres religions, tradicions, on estan mentalment preparats per a moltes situacions tan en la vida com per la mort, com ara el budisme crec que es el budisme.
I be, al nord de Catalunya a la Cerdanya si que en ocasions s’acostuma a fer com comentes a la teva terra, s’ajunten families, veins al voltant de la taula i fan un dinar de germanor.
Salut :o)
I have been to the local tanatori as well, and the time I went there was a delay as some people had to come from the States. There was also no food or eating in any way involved with it.
The other thing I found different was the sheer level of grief and solemnity. I don’t know about your bit of the UK, but I know that my British family, and funerals in Canada, while you don’t smile and talk and laugh (quietly) next to anyone truly devastated, normally immediate family, a certain amount of levity is expected. Not so here.
The only exception to that for me is when a child dies. I’ve been to a funeral for a 16 year old and it was extremely solemn.
You can also have your body shipped away for the funeral, so you could conceivably have the Catalan ceremony here that day and the next, and then have yourself shipped to the UK in time for a funeral there. Odd thing to be talking about, but maybe it makes sense coming up to Easter too.
I, too, was at the Tanatori last week for an English friend’s funeral. It was a short and solemn affair in Spanish and had it not been for a very personal eulogy by another friend right at the end, it could have been an anonymous event.
At the same Tanatori about 3 years ago, another English friend’s funeral took place. This was entirely non-religious and conducted by the eldest son. This was a warm, celebratory event.
I admire the Dutch system where coffee and cake are served afterwards in a side room. A remembrance book is available and relatives welcome everyone.
Dying in a foreign country has inevitably gone through my head (I’m in my 70s) and I’ve arranged funeral insurance because of the speed with which funerals have to be arranged here. I imagined the trauma of my relatives having to find 3000€ approx in cash (!) So, now, with one phone call, everything will be arranged. I’ve left instructions of what I want…..music, poetry and, hopefully, some laughter.
It’s quite cathartic to go through this process, I’ve found, and with settling my mind over death arrangements, I can just get on with living.