Roland Humphries 1980 to 2003

A  humanist  funeral ceremony

for

ROLAND JACK HUMPHRIES

18 March 1980  – 24 October 2003

at

Westall Park

Monday 24 November 2003

11.45 am

Officiant: Thelma Brazier: British Humanist Association
Funeral Director: J. Giles & Sons

********************

Here bring your wounded hearts,
Here tell your anguish,
Earth has no sorrow that love cannot heal.

Anon

Welcome this morning as we meet in this natural, peaceful and appropriate place to say farewell to Roland Jack Humphries. This outdoor part of today’s two ceremonies will be a short and loving leave taking, with a full commemoration of his life to follow in All Saints Church Hall at around 1.00 pm.

That we should all be here saying our goodbyes to this young life of just twenty-three years is surely a tragedy, and it is hard to accept that the glory of light cannot exist without its shadows. I hope that in time you will be able to regard these words written by Corliss Lamont:

In my view death is simply one of the many kinds of tragedy that human beings encounter. Let us not attempt to mask the tragic aspects of death, but let us not be preoccupied with it, nor allow it, on account of the heartache and crisis it causes, to overshadow the other phases of human life.

Let us look death in the face with honesty, with dignity and with calmness, recognising that some unhappiness is inherent in human experience, but that together we have the resources to come to terms with this fact.

The last few years have been witness to much personal strife, highs and lows of living for those closest to Roland and most especially for Roland himself. He is now at peace.

He has outsoared the shadow of our night;
Envy and calumny and hate and pain,
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Can touch him not and torture not again;
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain
He is secure, and now can never mourn
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain.

Shelley:  Adonais - An Elegy on the Death of John Keats

Let us pause for a moment while you reflect on your own personal memories of Roland …

***********************

We have now reached the time when we must lay Roland to rest, and as we do so we keep in mind that the best answer to death is the whole-hearted and continuing affirmation of life. Roland will be part of this tranquil place for all time; through the warmth of summer and the cold of winter, through the freshness of spring and the mists of autumn, he will be at peace.

(the lowering of the coffin)

His character and personality we commit to our memories.

His love and friendship we commit to our hearts.

His body we commit to its natural end …

His laughter was better than the birds in the morning, his smile
Turned the edge of the wind, his memory
Disarms death and charms the surly grave.
Early he went to bed, too early we
Saw his light put out;
Yet we could not grieve
More than a little while,
For he lives in the earth around us, laughs from the sky.

C. Day Lewis

 There is a tradition in some parts of Europe to use the symbol of the fir tree at a funeral. At Yuletide we have a fir tree because it expresses the death of the old year, yet, by remaining green, gives hope for new birth and new life to come. In a similar way, we have commemorated the life that has ended and all that he meant to us, but we also look to the future, to our children and to yet unborn generations.

 In a moment, following the concluding poem, I will invite each one of you, in turn after me, to place a sprig of fir tree into this final resting-place as a way of saying farewell to Roland. It will symbolise our confidence that the future will be richer because he was part of your lives, and that your memories of him will always stay evergreen and fresh. The outdoor ceremony will then be at an end.

In the warm blue heart of the land,
My beautiful, beautiful one
Sleeps where we laid him down
Before the journey was done.

The trailing shadows of clouds
Steal from the slopes and are gone:
The myriad life in the grass
Stirs, but he slumbers on.

The strong red journeying sun,
The pale and wandering rain,
Will roam on the land together
And find him never again.

Then twilight falls with the touch
Of a hand that soothes and stills,
And a swamp-robin sings into light
The lone white star of the hills.

Alone in the dusk he sings,
And the joy of another day
Is folded in peace and borne
On the drift of years away.

But there in the heart of the land
My beautiful, beautiful one
Sleeps where we laid him down;
And the long sweet night is begun.

Adapted from:  W. Bliss Carman (1861 – 1929)

(evergreen sprigs)

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