In Memoriam

Eulogy (As read at Sandra's funeral)

We never imagined -Sandra and I- that we would be here, like this, today. We thought she had at least a couple of more months.

She was due to sit in Court last Thursday, and right up until Tuesday she still intended to do so. On Tuesday, however, it became clear that she might not be able to sit so, out of fairness to others, she asked me to cancel. But we still expected her to be home for the weekend. That was not to be.

What shall I miss about Sandra?

Her laugh. She had such a laugh as I have never encountered in anyone else. I daresay we've all seen a slow motion film of a dog shaking itself dry. The shake starts at the nose and works its way along the body until reaching the tail -by which time the whole of the dog is shaking. Sandra's laugh was like that. It would start with a broad grin -the broadest grin I have ever seen- then her shoulders would shake, and so on until the whole of her body was just taken over in one giant, vibrating laugh. Her laugh has to be top of the list.

Her honesty and integrity. It is possible to be too honest in what one says, and that did sometimes get her into trouble with others, but the people who knew her best knew that she always spoke the truth and that they didn't have to look for hidden meanings or implications. If she said it, she meant it. But she always, but always, went out of her way to be fair and considerate towards others even whilst they were not being fair or considerate towards her.

Her unconventional side. Sandra loved being different, being unconventional and free-thinking. Although she never chose to shock (1), she did not run away from doing so. She took pleasure from expressing a point of view which would challenge people to sit up and take notice, make them think "That's right. Why on Earth didn't we think of that?".

Her pride and dignity. These were her all; the central core of her being. Losing her dignity during the final days of her illness was one of her biggest fears, but she remained dignified to the end.

Her need to be in control. Need I say more? She certainly took the Bart's medical team by surprise.

Her bravery and tenacity. She was terrified by the treatment. "First they poison you, then they cut pieces off you, then they zap you with deadly rays", was how she described it. But she saw it through -and that is the mark of true bravery: doing something one is scared of, but doing it nonetheless. She was a fighter who never gave up.

Sandra loved writing poetry, and towards the end came to think of herself more as a poet than anything else. Over recent months her poetry, as with our lives, became centred on her disease. I do not know which was her favourite poem, but I do know which is mine. This is it: it's called FREEFALL; and was the last piece she wrote before entering hospital for the final time.

FREEFALL, by Sandra Lorenca Lovegrove

Hurtling unprepared through frozen air,
Propelled in unrestrained and undirected flight,
The ice-rope slithers through the hand,
A momentary grasp,
No crampons to give grip.
No way to know if it is going to be
A gentle slope or headlong slippery slide;
No way to know how long it lasts
Nor how it all will end,
The only certainty that once begun
There can be no return
To that clear and firm plateau
Where others walk, unknowing
The ravening crevasse beckoning below

Some find the precipice and peer
To watch the downward feared career,
And wonder how it feels to fall so far.
They cannot hear the falling calls,
The breath choked in the throat,
Nor feel the loss of ground beneath the feet.

There's no exhilaration in the slide,
The slick and sickening helter-skelter ride:
The waking sleeper's horror finding nightmare real
Only knows the terror of the fall.

Scattering of Sandra's ashes

Innerleithan at the scattering of Sandra's ashes		The following day

On 11 September, I wrote to various friends

I've just returned from Scotland, where Sandra's son, D, and I have spent a long weeked so that we could scatter Sandra's ashes, according to her wishes, in the Tweed at Innerleithan. We travelled up on Friday.

Saturday morning, we left the hotel at 7:00AM for the 5 minute walk to the river. It was a cold morning, with a heavy mist and with no wind, or even the slightest breeze. The Tweed was running clear at about walking pace, but absolutely smoothly with no turbulence. We stood on the bridge over the centre of the river. I said Kaddish. D then emptied the urn into the river.

Because there was no breeze, Sandra's ashes fell smoothly in one continuous stream, and -because there was no turbulence- formed a brown streak in the river, which stayed together and moved off into the distance until hidden by the mist. It was very Arthurian.

As I watched this, I was taken over by a sense of utter freedom; of Sandra scurrying off into the hills to embrace them as quickly as she could. This was so strong that I cried, not out of sadness but out of total happiness. D later told me that he had been overcome by an overwhelming sense of joy as he emptied the urn; he had been very sad during the walk from the hotel.

The final verse of Sandra's poem "Destination" says it all

And finally, where first I wept to see such hills:
The softly flowing Tweed where I shall end.
Wait for me, secret heron, I shall not be long,
To join the jumping trout at day's end at the river bend.

(Yes, there actually was a heron, and there were trout: some trout fishermen came along while we were still there).

The weather conditions were absolutely perfect for the occasion. If they had been any different then her ashes would not have stayed together but would have been dispersed by wind or water.

A perfect goodbye for her; I am satisfied.

Roger

(1) Several of those who knew Sandra well have disagreed with this statement. They think that she did sometimes seek to shock as a method of getting people to think about what she was saying, and that she obtained great pleasure from doing so. Maybe.