Tag Archives: funerals

FMM 2 28 2025 Happy place, Sad reason

“In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.” ~ Marianne Williamson. I first learned about hurricanes when I was almost eight years old and traveling to Jamaica on the S.S. Ascania with my family and a […]

FMM 2 9 2024 Larger than Life

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” ~ George Eliot. I don’t know how old I was when I went to my first funeral.  I know that it was not a requirement, even though my father was the minister of the church. But I was probably a teenager and a […]

FMM 1 27 2023 Three days, three mothers

 Let us now praise unfamous women, And our mothers that begat us. (Adapted from Ecclesiasticus 44:1). It may sound strange, but I find much to appreciate in a funeral.  I have often learned more about the person who died at the celebration of their life, than I knew of them when alive.  It so happens that last week I […]

FMM 7 15 2022 The Speed of Life

“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs.” ~ Charlotte Bronte. Last weekend I attended the celebration of life for a musician.  It was held in a church, because he was a believer and church member, but despite the traditional service there were a number of beautiful musical […]

FMM 1 10 20 Traveling Mercies

“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” ~ Lao Tzu.  My first time in Key West, over 40 years ago, was a trip of revelation.  I was already having a hard time adjusting to the America of Miami: large cars, huge straight roads, flashing neon lights advertising establishments big […]

FMM 9 14 18 Change the Lens

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau.  Wales is known as the land of song.  It is the land of my forefathers too; both of my parents were descended from men and women that lived in that historic piece of the United Kingdom.  It is a […]

FMM 8 26 16 Road Trip, Baby!

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike”~Maya Angelou.  Before my family moved to Jamaica, our annual vacations began with a road trip.  My parents would pack up whatever old jalopy we owned (one was the ‘orange monster’!) with camping gear, supplies for a month, and five kids.  The journey was made slightly […]

FMM 8 12 16 Jamaica Sweet!

“Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night?”~ Claude McKay.   For many years, I was totally loyal to Air Jamaica.  I refused to fly on any other airline when I flew home to Jamaica.  It was not just the beautifully sleek […]

FMM 12 18 15 In Praise of Life

“Though lovers be lost love shall not, And death shall have no dominion.”~Dylan Thomas.   Death is a funny thing.  It sharpens the senses like a shower of rain clears the air.  Memories once distant come close.  As a drop of dew on a leaf brings the colors and veins into acute focus, it can […]