Unfortunately yesterday I had to go to a funeral. My Great Aunt had died and many of my close and extended family and I gathered at an old cemetery in Willesden to pay our respects and celebrate the life of a very spirited 95 year old lady. The funeral itself was lovely, full of emotional and amusing anecdotes of a real character, someone who lived their life to the full until ill-health hit only a couple of years ago.

What I find interesting about a funeral is the way it makes you consider, or re-consider, everything that is in your life. It’s impossible when hearing about how someone else has lived their life which has now sadly come to an end, not to think about how your own is going. Sometimes we travel along, making decisions when we are forced to, but often not considering what we want to achieve long term.

So yesterday I found myself thinking about my life, what I’m doing now, and what I really want to be doing in the future. I’m not sure I came to any life-changing momentous decisions, but I definitely fed myself some tasty food for thought.

For me, the other emotion which comes to the fore on these occasions is an empowering sense of family. I’ve written before about how close I am to my sister (who lives in Ealing too) and my brother (who doesn’t). But it’s not only my siblings who I hold dear. I am also very close to my extended family: first cousins, second cousins and third cousins once removed (really!). I know there are many people who don’t have such a close family relationship but I truly count myself lucky that I do.

Cemeteries are such fascinating places and even though I’ve never been particularly into history per se, I am very interested in my own family history and a cemetery always reminds me of the fascinating stories of past family members. My Aunt was buried very close to my paternal Great Grandparents and looking at their joint headstone brought back one of my earliest memories. I remember them as two slightly stern, very old people (well very old to me), dressed head to toe in black. They were sitting by a huge kitchen table at their house in North London speaking mainly Yiddish which clearly I didn’t understand. (My understanding of English wasn’t great then, let alone Yiddish.)

I realise now of course that the kitchen table wasn’t that big, it’s just that I was very small. In fact I was under four when this memory was created, so definitely one of my first real memories.

My Great Grandparents were inseparable and spent nearly 60 years together which included uprooting from Poland to the UK. They died in 1969, within three days of each other, unable to continue life without one another.

Looking at their graves and being at the funeral brought this and many other memories flooding back. And don’t get me wrong, they weren’t all maudlin thoughts about those I’ve lost, they were full of happy recollections of times gone by. The funeral truly was a celebration of my Great Aunt’s life and it made me realise that sometimes it’s really wonderful to take a look at your family history and think about the people that have shaped you. We shouldn’t forget that we’re not just a product of our parents, but of generations of people whose genes run through our veins. So we should all celebrate everyone who has come before us, as we would like to be celebrated in the future.

NOTE TO SELF: Never forget our ancestors as they are still within us today.