My connection (and even more so in the case of my brother) to Boboli is much stronger than to the Polish church in Windsor Road in Ealing; we'd go to Boboli as boys for Sunday Mass, preceded by Polish scout cubs, then Polish scouts; I'd go to the Polish youth club here in the mid-1970s. Windsor Road, where my mother's funeral mass was held four years ago, became the parish church for the Polish community in Ealing in the late 1980s; my parents hardly even went there, going rather to the more local chapel at Courtfield Gardens for the best part of half a century. However, Courtfield Gardens is too small for funerals, being little more than a large detached family house.
So many people came for my father's funeral - yet so few now of his generation - a tiny handful. I am grateful to everyone who came, who wanted to pay their final respects to my father. It was wonderful that as at the last two funerals I attended, there was a goodly turnout of former Polish scouts from the Third London Scout Troop - 3. Londyńska Drużyna Harcerska Błękitna Trójka - ten of us, including my brother and myself. More than 45 years have passed since then, yet the old ties remain.
The wake at the Łowiczanka restaurant in the POSK Polish centre in Hammersmith was excellent - great food and wine, a wonderful atmosphere - had my father looked down upon us, he'd have been exceedingly happy that he had been remembered, and laid to rest, in such warm and friendly circumstances. He outlived nearly all his male contemporaries who had fought during the war, his life had been long and szczęśliwe - that useful Polish word that means both 'lucky' and 'happy'.
This time last year:
Foggy day in Chynów
This time two years ago:
Trump, Brexit and the Missing Middle
This time eight years ago:
Bad news for Jeziorki's rat runners
This time nine years ago:
Death on the tracks
This time ten years ago:
From Łady to Falenty
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5 comments:
Very sorry to hear your father passed away. Just to let you know, my mother, your mother’s sister, Irena, died on May 3, 2019.
@ Teresa Flanagan
Thank you for your condolences. I am sorry to hear of your mother's passing. At Easter, my father and I googled your mother, fearing that she might have passed on - a few weeks too soon, it seems.
Fitting that your mother died on Poland's national day, while her sister Marysia died on Wszystkich Świętych.
It is fitting indeed, that our mothers died on significant holidays. Inexorably sad, however, that I learn about your father’s death through a blog post and you are forced to google the internet to see if an aunt is still alive. With the deaths of these two remaining parents, pretty much also comes the end of whatever sliver of attachment the families had. Gives one pause for thought, no?
It does indeed. Though the hand of friendship is always there to be extended.
Absolutely.
Happy holidays to you and yours. Best wishes for the New Year.
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