Travelblog: Late for the Funeral. By Three Years.

Words about friendship and death ahead. There, you’re warned. I’m still on vacation, but I’m going to talk about grieving and my human friend Elaine. I label her that way because I usually write about horses. Please smile now. This isn’t a sad essay.

Friendship has always felt complicated to me. I keep the necessary boundaries to be fair and balanced while working. At the same time, part of being a clinician is being entertaining. Otherwise, people would not listen, and horses need us to listen. So, if I’m doing my job well, hopefully, people will enjoy my company.

However, I have learned not all acquaintances are trustworthy. True friends are hard to find as we age, and the feeling must bloom naturally and be mutual. It helps if one isn’t paying the other one. Ironically, Elaine and I met when I was reeling from being trashed on social media by a “friend” who was offended by a blog I wrote about death.

Elaine used to quote a poem, “People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.” Boy howdy. Now if I could learn to tell the difference.

So, I’d been leapfrogging my way across England on my way to visit Elaine. Here is the odd thing. Elaine isn’t here, but I’ll get to that part.

Elaine always said the least interesting thing about her was that she had cancer. The best thing was her wit. So smart, and wicked funny. I fell for her writing first. We’d both been self-employed forever, and we had horses in common.

Elaine had a unique voice, and I suggested she write a memoir. It isn’t an unusual thing for me to do. I think we should all write one. But Elaine took me up on it, writing it in what would be her last year. By September she said I might have to help finish it and I said I would.

We had planned our next visit for 2020 while I worked in the EU, but the pandemic happened. Elaine died in January 2021. I couldn’t make the funeral and it all felt unfinished. As if it was a cloud that followed me.

It wasn’t not logical to feel this way. I had encouraged Mark, Elaine’s husband, as he wrote about her last days, seen from his side. Then, I edited her writing into book form. A Horse A Husband and Cancer is an amazing, humorous, and honest read. Yes, she dies at the end. Just like every single one of us will. But isn’t our real story always about life?

Mark and I did not become friends during the editing process, because we were already friends from the start, too. Now I needed to come back finally for a proper hug from Mark. And a proper goodbye to Elaine.

The first stop in Wimborne was to visit Elaine’s friend and horse trainer. She also has a goat enterprise and during visits, we’d spent hours in that pen. Being there was a balm, then and now.

Afterward, I checked in to the hotel and prepared to meet Mark. I’d told him I wanted to go for a walk. That felt safer. I’ve been so looking forward to being here, but now I was anxious. So much so that I wasn’t sure I’d even recognize him. But silly me, I saw him a long block away.

His face was shining as we hurried toward each other and into a tearful hug that lasted a very long time. Then we walked and talked as intimately as ever. We laughed and cried, and we walked some more. Then I said I could use a pint.

We went into the Oddfellows Pub, where a friend of Mark’s has worked off and on for 47 years! I kind of envied her. To say the pub is small is an understatement. My house is small, and the pub could probably fit in my living room.

There were only two people when we got there. The bartender who I was told is 19 but doesn’t look a day over 16, and another big burly man Mark knows. Wimborne is a small town where people know each other. I was introduced and soon an older man wandered in and joined the conversation. Eventually, another couple sat at the far end of the bar, which wasn’t so far that they weren’t in the conversation as well.

They all want to know how Trump ever got elected. Mind you, many of the people I speak with are conservatives. Policies aren’t their concern. The second question everybody asks has to do with guns.

If you’re feeling a little dread about talking politics in a pub, well don’t. The big guy was articulate and engaging. Not to mention Brits swear better than anyone. The older man had perceptive ideas and the man at the far end of the bar had worked in the US. If you travel, you know there’s going to be a conversation about politics, but here you can talk about politics without killing each other. It’s refreshing.

I have no answers to either question and somehow this ends up being playful conversation with lots of laughter and stories. I told them now isn’t a great time to visit the US. Then it was time to go. The burly man offered me his hand to shake. I swear I have no idea how this happened but I pulled him close and hugged him, and then wondered about myself for the rest of the night. I am not a natural hugger.

Over the next day, I reconnected with old friends and met some new ones. Mark planned a luncheon, and we ate Sunday roast. Life here is different now, because as permanent as death is, as much as we miss Elaine, life still goes on. Time swirls the parts of our life together, those who pass on become part of us now, and we continue.

Then Mark and I picked flowers from the garden and went to visit Elaine’s grave. She’s buried in a wicker coffin at the Poole & Wimborne Woodland Burial grounds. There were lots of young trees and flowers. The place had a wild feel that Elaine would like. There were no huge tombstones. Everyone was equal; just small markers and benches. Predictably, we cried some more. We always will, but that feels different now, too.

There was a quiet relief in being there. Is this the reason for open caskets? I knew she was gone. Elaine hadn’t been looking over our shoulders, haunting our meals. Mark and I like to think she would be happy to see us together there, but she was well and truly some other place now. What was unfinished before shifted. I laid her to rest differently. It made loving Elaine easier again.

Monday morning, Mark took me to the train station. He’s the sort of man who opens doors and carries bags as a rule. It’s been a while, and I felt special, but I think it’s just who he is. Mark waited with me on the platform and then carried my bag onto the train and helped find my seat. Getting off at the last moment, he blew kisses as the train moved. I could feel myself curling up inside, my arms barely holding me together. I hate saying goodbye. Another thing Elaine and I had in common.

In parting, everyone said that we would meet again, and I hope we will all live that long. Elaine didn’t. I knew our friendship was for life. I just didn’t know how much I would be living without her. And I hope to be here to say goodbye to others I love. Is that my future?

Somehow everybody in Scotland and England seemed a little bit like a slightly weird relative that you have known but not met. The men were twinkly eyed sweet, as if they were not quite sober. The women laugh out loud and are welcoming to strangers they meet at bus stops and toilets. Like we are all in on the joke.

My UK friends are royalty. Here’s a grateful wave and I’m off to Paris, carrying a lot less baggage.