Funeral

I went to a funeral yesterday. My sister-in-law’s dad died fairly unexpectedly a week or so ago, and I drove back to Chesterfield to represent my bit of the family. I hadn’t known Les for long, but had of course seen him at all the kind of family gatherings where you tend to overlap with people. I’d sat next to him on the top table at my brother’s wedding (with both of us giving speeches), and met him at Christmas parties and family BBQs. I wasn’t quite a peripheral figure at the funeral, but I certainly wasn’t the main event. His three (adult) children and his wife were, and my brother was pretty senior too, as a pallbearer, and rider in the family car. I tend to view attendees at all these big life events as being tiered - are you part of the core, are you a recent or old friend, or are you a hanger-on? I don’t mean anything bad by it, but I just think it’s a nice way of viewing things. At the last wedding I went to, I was a tier 2 guest - I said hi to the bride and groom, and maybe…