When I Had a Little Sister: The Story of a Farming Family Who Never Spoke

I studied the photo and noticed the exact shape of her fingernails, the way her wedding ring had worn a smooth groove in the flesh of her finger before she’d cut the ring off, and I noticed the knobs of arthritis in her thumb joints as her hands rested against the blue silk pattern on her dress.

Then I deleted the photograph.

Death is a thousand tiny losses and each loss is a thousand tiny details.

Why was it important to get everything right for my mother as she lay in her coffin? It was guilt, I think – guilt that I couldn’t do anything else for her, guilt that I couldn’t bring her back, guilt that I had not been able to stop her dying in the first place. My mother had an enormous ability to make me feel guilty even when I had no idea what I should feel guilty about.

Years later I discovered that items placed in a coffin have a name: grave goods. Apparently people tuck all sorts around the dead: jewellery, photographs, sealed letters, rosary beads, spectacles, hats, mints, walking sticks, cigarettes, football strips, teddy bears, comfortable shoes and money.

For whose benefit are grave goods? Maybe mourners believe the item will help the dead on the journey to the afterlife – the walking stick, money, glasses and shoes. Or perhaps some items are considered part of the deceased’s identity, things that they should never be parted from – in particular the glasses. Or do grave goods in the coffin give the living a sense of comfort?

I think so.

In fitting my mother up with a bag and glasses and notes and her fanciest dress I took comfort from having done the best I could.

We arranged to bury Mum in the local village churchyard, a row further on from her own mother and father. We explained this to the undertaker at a meeting in Dad’s kitchen. The undertaker took notes on a clipboard and my father said, ‘Dig it deep and leave enough room for me,’ and Tricia, speaking up for the first time since the meeting began, said, ‘Dig it even deeper and leave enough room for me too.’

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