My aunt, Nana's daughter, has outlined the details of the funeral that's inevitably coming. There will be no prayers of the faithful, no bringing up junk that used to belong to the deceased, and most of all no standing up on the altar and saying nice things about her. In this, Nana and Aunty Anne (let's call her) are in complete agreement: both veterans of midlands funerals, they have had time to decide and discuss what their ideal situation is. And it involves a minimum of memorialising: the priest needs to get home for his dinner.
When my aunt told me this, I smiled, which is what I do when I disagree completely with something that I know has nothing to do with me. I want so much to memorialise Nana. Happily, I have the whole internet to myself, and can do what I like here.
There's a single thread that runs most compellingly through my 32 years of memories of my grandmother: her community activism. When I was little, spending the summer in Roscrea, she would bundle my sister and I into her car after tea and set us up selling sweets in the Muintir na Tire hall while the Feis or the bingo or whatever it was went on. She was chairperson of the local Muintir na Tire committee until she retired about 15 years ago. Retirement allowed her to throw herself into fundraising for the Roscrea sports and leisure centre (she ran a second hand clothes sale in the music hall twice weekly for about 8 years), and looking after the old folks in the nursing home across the road. The wife of a die-hard Fianna Fail man, she considered herself above politics, but she was a powerful actor in the community, knew what she believed was important, and had a skill for seeing to it that funding found its way to these priorities. Charming and gregarious, teetotal but perfectly comfortable in male company, I saw her convince many a power-broker to do her bidding: a consummate product and manipulator of parish pump politics.
Professionally, I'm now a follower of civil society, participatory democracy, active citizenship. If we weren't separated by a generation gap that amounts to a cultural divide, and now the insuperable barrier of her stroke, there would be robust rows to be had with the woman about what she prioritised, how and why. I think she probably had those rows with my mother - also the type who sat on every committee going. I am not so concerned about the inherent conservatism, even bigotry, of my Nana's views: I'm just bowled over by her commitment to play a role in the world she inhabited throughout her life.
When I was in 6th class, I was elected to be the chairperson of our departing-from-primary-school class committee. It's still one of the moments in my life that gives me the greatest flush of pride (I should point out I didn't canvas or anything: the poll was organised without adult support, with no primaries or speeches). But I remember going down to Roscrea that Christmas, and Mum telling our family there. Nana was even prouder than I was. She said I was taking after her.
I hope I can.
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