It wasn't her idea to celebrate her birthday...

"It's wrong us all meeting like this. We really should get together and enjoy each other's company while we're alive. Not wait until we meet up at a funeral. I mean, which of us really knew our Ethel?"

My mind drifted off as Dorothy continued. For some reason I felt guilty. I thought my relationship with Aunt Ethel had been, well, reasonable. Now I was beginning to realise I hardly knew her. As it turned out, none of us did.

She'd never married. I couldn't understand that. She had a marvellous disposition. I recalled hearing a chap at a local dance looking at her and murmuring something about Ethel being a nice looking woman, but that it was a pity she was too much on the quiet side though. I did know she did have a couple of near-misses.
Man was I relieved when that toffee-nosed jerk who worked in a government office took off in another direction. All beak and bum as far as I could see. The other chap worked in a local joinery. Liked his beer too much though and was killed outside the local one wet winter's night. Walked smack into the side of a bus. Sad of course, but yeah, I thought she was better off without either of them.

Dorothy was still pontificating. She wasn't much on your actual organising of get-togethers. She was right though, about getting to know each other better. We all knew that. What had surprised us was the number of folk who'd turned up at the church. George had arranged for the service to be held in the small Ladies' Chapel. That was a laugh. Good job the minister had used his loaf when he'd seen the numbers arriving. Got his ushers to remove the fancy rope barriers to the main part of the church. They'd filled that and the Ladies' Chapel, then had to connect the sound system to the one in the hall alongside.

Oh yes, the send off for her had turned out to be something quite special. Touched every one of us when different ones came to the front to speak. All kinds of folk, from your well-dressed, well-spoken to just ordinary people. Some were quite shabbily dressed and rather scruffy, but that didn't matter when we heard what they had to say. It didn't matter that they mumbled or stopped to wipe their eyes before they could carry on. Even the minister was moved. He'd started the service all right and proper, you know the kind. Finished it with real warmth and feeling, quite moved by it all.

You see, Ethel had been a bit of a dark horse. She'd found something she could do that many others steered clear of and just went ahead, got stuck in and did it. It had to do with people you see. Nothing that would catch the headlines though. For goodness sake, who'd work in an Op Shop? And when she closed the doors there a little before lunch she'd trot off down to the Shelter for the Homeless and help with free lunches and such. I dropped in there myself to see what it was like. Talk about the dregs of society. At first glance that was all I saw. Mostly misfits, the unwashed, unlovely, so called no-hopers. And as I stood there thinking those things, I thought of Aunt Ethel and hated myself for feeling ashamed of being there. I know she'd have seen them as belonging to somebody once. Loved by a wife or husband, mother or father, son or daughter. They'd just lost their way, needed someone to well, you can guess the rest.

It was the last speaker at the funeral who really got to us. An unusual person. Refined but down-to-earth with it. Not the kind of person you'd have expected to find caring for down-and-outs. She told us how Ethel had walked in one day and asked if there was anything she could do to help and that had been almost ten years ago. A couple of weeks back they'd set out to give her a surprise. It wasn't Ethel's idea to celebrate her birthday. See, that's what really hit us. Apart from sending her the usual card with a few words added, that's all she ever got from us relatives. You'll know what I mean. That's what she'd told the lady one day. She wasn't bitter about it; she wasn't that sort.

I went back there a couple of times. Thought I might try to help, you know, take over where Ethel had left off. But there was no way I could get alongside the folk there. You have to be a special kind of person to do that, don't you think?

Anyway, Dorothy's pleased. I've started organising a family get-together for next Spring. She's on the phone right now. And I’m glad I'm not paying her phone bill.

© Dennis Crompton 1997
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2012)