A Funeral for a Friend...

Merlin told young King Arthur to savor the taste of the first mouthful, that the entire banquet was contained in it and that every bite after tried in vain to live up to its memory.

A funeral is the opposite; it is a silent rebellion, an attack on life for daring to end. We sit, we listen, we cry, we console. Reminiscing holds the taste of life in our mouths for just a little longer as the lie of existence, dispelled by the raucous intrusion of death, gathers itself on the fringes like the ebbing tide, waiting to flow back into the spaces between us all and claim our attention once again.

This week we buried a woman of simple glory, a champion of everything 'we', Trini to the bone.

Most of us were aware of her ailing and were bracing for the news, but none of us expected that her death could mean so much, so unassuming was this person, so at ease with Kings and commoners alike that she melted into the tapestry of our consciousness and belonged everywhere she went..

Much of the feeling expressed to me by the most diverse bunch of people since her passing has made me reflect on this impact she had, to try and understand why she meant what she meant to so many. My mother called me and said "if you're writing this weekend, say something about Allison nah" and that is only the second time she has asked that of me. The last time my mother asked to write something about someone was when Pope John Paul the Second passed, and i wonder if she realized the mind-space she allowed them both.

Allison was a lot to many, more than most realized in the way a living symbol is most clear at the end; she provided a common reflection for a nation desperate to have icons to share as if to say 'See? we really are one people." Her death exposed us to ourselves again, revealed the fact that maybe we're not really living our lives but moving from mundane to desperate and back again without pausing to savour; when someone who appeared to at least have gotten it, who lived a little more than we do dies, they takes a little more of our best selves with them down into the earth.

Amidst all the captains of this industry and that who came to mourn are cowboy and indian dreamers, behind all the teary eyes are memories of sno-cones on sunny days, mango seasons, the carefree laughter of friends bonded by common pursuit thick like Trini blood.

People like Allison makes a lie of the life we live, exposes it for its ability to corrupt joy and happiness and reveals the disposable plastic of our empty material world that we have exchanged wonder and euphoria for.

Burying Allison was a lot like burying hope of a better day, and we mourn ourselves as much as we mourn her passing.

Thank you dear Allison for your tireless contribution to the good in us, for your joy and your laughter; farewell sweet angel, may you forever know peace...

Amen.