A visit to my father

This April day is bright and sunny, as I sit quite alone, with mixed feelings, on the moss and lichen covered wooden bench, by the metal rails, in the 'June' 1998 section of Colchester crematorium 'Gardens of Remembrance'.

The crematorium is tucked away at the rear of the cemetery, as if being cremated is a stigma. This is my first visit in twenty-four years, since the day he (my father) was cremated and his ashes scattered here.

He had the foresight to arrange everything through a funeral firm. So I'd had little to do but attend the last day his flesh was on this earth.

Ashes being scattered means no coffin, no urn or jar, nothing to remember him by. And that's what I imagine he wanted. To be anonymous. Not even a small plaque.

I'll not rave on about his flaws, for we're all flawed. He was very human, with all the faults of a human male. Now I too have aged, I am having some inkling of the lonely life he led towards the end of his life here. Perhaps I am the son of my father after all.