Monday, January 05, 2009
5th January 2009
I went to a funeral today.
In the same chapel in the same crematorium where we had Susie's funeral.
As I left the house I was so reluctant to leave it felt as though my knees were locking to stop me moving one foot in front of the other.
It was for Stanley Eveling, a playwright of the generation before me whose work at the Traverse was a huge inspiration.
I met him once; although I knew his work, I hardly knew him at all.
I'd wanted to go because I had a hunch very few theatre people would be there, and I felt it important to honour his memory.
His family obviously loved him dearly. They had organised a beautiful funeral, which they conducted with great courage, crying a lot on the way.
Their tears started mine, but I controlled them, because I felt a bit wrong somehow, weeping tears at the funeral of this obviously lovely man I hardly knew. Tears that were really not for him at all.
And when I got home I felt so exhausted and stressed and depressed and full of tears and the most desperate pain of missing Susie all over again.
It felt impossible even to begin on the massive mound of work that awaited me.
But I began anyway.
And by evening I had finished the introduction to Yerma.
I went off to have supper with my daughter Katie feeling immensely proud of myself. As if I had slain a dragon or two.
Looked deep grief straight in the eye and emerged unscathed.
More than that: emerged somehow victorious.
And paid tribute to a gifted writer and lovely man.
I went to a funeral today.
In the same chapel in the same crematorium where we had Susie's funeral.
As I left the house I was so reluctant to leave it felt as though my knees were locking to stop me moving one foot in front of the other.
It was for Stanley Eveling, a playwright of the generation before me whose work at the Traverse was a huge inspiration.
I met him once; although I knew his work, I hardly knew him at all.
I'd wanted to go because I had a hunch very few theatre people would be there, and I felt it important to honour his memory.
His family obviously loved him dearly. They had organised a beautiful funeral, which they conducted with great courage, crying a lot on the way.
Their tears started mine, but I controlled them, because I felt a bit wrong somehow, weeping tears at the funeral of this obviously lovely man I hardly knew. Tears that were really not for him at all.
And when I got home I felt so exhausted and stressed and depressed and full of tears and the most desperate pain of missing Susie all over again.
It felt impossible even to begin on the massive mound of work that awaited me.
But I began anyway.
And by evening I had finished the introduction to Yerma.
I went off to have supper with my daughter Katie feeling immensely proud of myself. As if I had slain a dragon or two.
Looked deep grief straight in the eye and emerged unscathed.
More than that: emerged somehow victorious.
And paid tribute to a gifted writer and lovely man.
Labels: RIP Stanley Eveling
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