Every Shade of Purple: choosing a fitting funeral poem

Have you ever sat opposite a complete stranger and been desperate to know their story?

It happens to me all the time and again when I travelled into the city by train this week. The lady across from me had purple hair. She was wearing a purple top under a purple jacket. Her glasses and bag were purple. Even her phone case was purple. Each a different shade of lavender, violet and lilac, as if she'd stepped out of a spiritual paint chart.  

A terrible one for strangers

I'll confess, I'm desperate to talk to strangers, especially the ones with a defining feature, or a look about them that says there's a tale behind it. People always have a story to tell. It's half the reason I’m attracted celebrancy.

So there I sat, rehearsing my opening line. Something about the colour, obviously. But she wouldn't meet my eye. However hard I tried (and I did try), she wasn't having it. She clearly didn't want to be chatting to anybody, and that was her prerogative. I wasn't going to intrude on her space.

Other than boring a hole into her forehead, that is.

Purple, surely?

Purple must’ve been her favourite colour. Surely?

And then the doubt crept in. What if it wasn't? What if her hair dye hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped. What if the bag was a present she felt obliged to use, the top was the only clean thing in the drawer, and the phone case came free with the phone... Or what if purple meant something that had nothing to do with liking it at all. A person she'd lost. A cause she cared about. A colour she wore to feel brave.

I'll never know. And that's the bit I’m still mulling over, because a colour can tell you plenty about someone, but it can't tell you everything.

A lady who knew her own mind

During the short trip I remembered a service I led last year, and the funeral poem I chose for an elderly lady I'll call Jean B.

Jean B was 89 when she died. She'd spent her last four years in a care home, and with no living family that anyone knew of, it was the women who'd cared for her who came to me to arrange her funeral. A family of the heart, if ever there was one.

They told me about a woman small in stature and huge in personality. Loud. Stubborn. Set in her ways and not the least bit sorry about it. You heard Jean long before you saw her, they told me. She'd swing her legs over the arm of a chair to watch the telly, take three sugars in her tea while insisting she'd never had a sweet tooth, and she maintained she'd leave all her money to the penguins.

Then she did.

She loved egg in a cup, too, which (as anyone who read Flying Low, With Heaven in a Mug will know) made her a woman after my own heart.

And her wardrobe? Skirts and cardigans in every shade of purple, lilac and navy. Sometimes three cardigans worn at once.

The poem that turned up

As her carers talked about her independence and her stubborn streak, a poem came to mind: Warning, by Jenny Joseph. And when they added that Jean adored her lilacs and purples, I knew it had to be read.

If you don't know it, the speaker imagines growing old and finally giving herself permission to misbehave. She'll wear purple with a red hat that clashes horribly, spend her money on things she has no business buying, and generally stop doing what's expected of her. Then, at the end, she wonders whether she ought to start practising now, so nobody's caught off guard when the day comes. I won't quote it here. Go and find it. It's short, it's mischievous, and it's worth the hunt.

I read it at Jean's service because it felt like hers.

What if it wasn't?

Back on the train, the question kept nagging. What if purple wasn't this lady’s favourite colour? And then, a bit uncomfortably, what if it hadn't been Jean's either?

The difference is that with Jean, I didn't guess. I asked.  Her carers knew her.  They'd buttered her toast exactly how she liked it, kept her favourite chair free, and played along when she "shopped" for other residents' slippers from the laundry trolley.  When they told me she loved purple, it came from years of paying attention.

That's what a good ceremony stands on. Not my clever reading of a stranger across a train table, but the people who loved someone enough to notice the small things. A poem chosen on a hunch is a nice gesture. A poem chosen because the people who knew her said yes, that's Jean? That belongs.

So if you're ever sitting down with a celebrant to plan a funeral, tell them the small stuff. The colour of the cardigans. The sugar in the tea. The chair nobody else was allowed to sit in. It might feel too trivial to mention, but the right poem or reading or eulogy passage is very often hiding in exactly those details.

Leaving her be

And the lady on the train? I let her be. Not every story is mine to hear, and nobody owes a nosey celebrant an explanation for their wardrobe.

But I hope she's a bit like Jean. I hope the purple is hers, chosen on purpose and worn because she wants to and for no other reason. And if she's not quite there yet, maybe she's practising.

So this one's for two women in purple. One I'll likely never see again, and one I only came to know through the stories of the women who cared for her. Both of them reminded me why I'll always choose asking over assuming.

And if you spot a woman in purple on your next train, give her a smile.

Just don't stare at her forehead.