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Annie McDonald Interred. “Were you there?”
Wednesday 1 April 2009
As I was having my siesta Kevin Toner drew his tractor up behind the ditch in Treanor’s field and emptied the septic tank. He also (by means of suction?) cleared the drains leading the waste water from the kitchen and the old bathroom into the "line" to the septic tank. I went out to him in my old rainbow robe, Emperor pajamas, Lotus flip-flops as he replaced the flags on the inspection point and on the septic tank. "What planet it that man from?" he commented on my story about how I used to do my business behind the ditch and wipe my arse with a dockin leaf. "There would not be a track of anything there in a few days," I elucidated. Kevin has wit and intelligence and a slow but sure method. I found the pastoral council meeting at 8.00 p.m. less congenial. Fr. Murphy contradicted me at least twice. When I suggested mid-day for a ceremony about suicide and suicide victims he countered that evening would be best. He also said there was stations of the cross at Our Lady of The Wayside last Good Friday and no liturgy of the cross. I maintained the opposite was the case but deferred to him saying my memory was poor. I checked later in my journal and found, on the contrary, that it was his memory which was defective. Furthermore I had commented in my journal on how successful the 3.00 p.m. ceremony was on Good Friday 2008. My paranoia got to work and I deduced that he and Gemma did away with the service because they were unhappy with the fact that it worked so well last year. Ireland scored (Robbie Keane) a late goal in Bari to draw 1 – 1 with 10 man Italy. In the morning I walked over for 11.00 a.m. funeral mass for Annie McDonald. Ann Murphy had a lot of sheets spread out before I got into my seat. In the event there was a big choir including Jo and Gerry Malone. Fidelis and Frances were absent but Catherine was in great voice particularly in Our Lady of Knock at the end. Anthony Rice, Dermot Treanor and Gerry Woods were present. I thought the singing was out of the top drawer. I opened up a little on "O, make us love Thee" in my usual fashion but throughout I tempered my singing with thoughts of gentle Annie.
· Nearer My God to Thee
· When Creation Was Begun
· Amazing Grace
· Sweet Heart of Jesus
· Our Lady of Knock
"When I see you I know I am in the right place!" I remarked to Fr. Padraig Murphy as he was getting his vestments out of the car at the gate of Ravensdale cemetery. I had walked home from the church and got my Lacrosse jacket – it was cool – and drove up to the graveyard in my black Yaris Strata (2007). Rather than talk to Fr. Murphy I crossed the road after an interval and talked through the window of his jeep to Jim Loughran. Also spoke later to Stephen Goss. Vera Rice maintained Annie was buried with her cousin – in the wrong grave. Her father and mother’s grave, a double grave with one other person in it was situated lower down in the graveyard. "If she wakens up she will walk back to Bellurgan out of that grave," Vera remarked to Fr Murphy who turned his back on me to talk to her. Renew was not mentioned at the pastoral council meeting. Pat Deery made the suggestion about a suicide service. At the end I mentioned I See a Darkness and Simon Moroney but scarcely anyone seemed to want to listen. Rosanna in high dudgeon when I come home from the meeting. She would not let me watch the soccer. She went to bed early eventually and slept late tomorrow morning. I washed my teeth, exercised before bed and was a little slow getting to sleep. Dressed in black slacks, grey Argyle socks, black brogues polished, old cream shirt clean, clean underclothes, green light pullover. I wore my Lacrosse jacket and black Greenore woolly helmet in the graveyard and again as I walked over to the pastoral council meeting. No lamp. Daylight on the way over; more or less dark on the way back.
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