I was thinking about Philip the other day and trying to remember where exactly we buried him. Mary rang the council and the next day a lady from Heidelberg Town Hall sent her a photo of his grave and the exact location of his plot. Marvelous thing, emails. ‘There is no headstone’ The lady from the council said ‘ Quite normal for the times.’ She’s not wrong there. We couldn’t afford the plot, let alone a headstone. David’s parents paid for it all, the plot, the funeral. I was in such a state, I couldn’t think. It was an Anglican service. I didn’t want that. I’d been going to the Salvos during the week for a couple of years and when Philip died so suddenly, they were wonderful! It was such a shock. I asked them to take the funeral but when it all happened it was Anglican. David’s parents seemed to think that because they paid for it, they could choose. It’s been sixty years and I still feel the hurt, the disappointment that I couldn’t send my little boy off the way I wanted to. It’s good to know he’s still there. I didn’t visit him, too busy with more babies. I was pregnant soon after Philip died. I knew it was going to be a girl. Don’t know how but I knew. I was going to call her Philipa. I wanted to remember Philip but when she was born, I knew she needed her own name. So I called her Wendy.
So now I want to get it right for David and me. I had to put him in a nursing home this year. I just couldn’t look after him any more. 66 years of marriage and now we live apart. But I can do this for him. Mary doesn’t want to think about us dying but she said she would help. I want to be prepared. I want to do this for David. We’ll go to the Funeral Parlour in Burgundy Street. Just down the road from Clauscen Street where I grew up. Just down the road from Phillip.