At the age of 89 years and 10 months, my mother, Gertrude Amy Lake passed away on the 7th October, a month after suffering a fall in her home. She had lived in sheltered accommodation in Omagh, since Christmas 1993 and for the past 6 years had been in accommodation very close to our home.
While Mum was not a Bahá'í, there was a short Bahá'í Funeral Service for her, essentially comprising prayers and readings. It was held in the common room of St Julian's House, the sheltered housing development where, lately, she had lived. About 70 chairs were set-out and latecomers stood outside the room, in the lobby. My brother, Ian, welcomed the guests and I gave a short biographical talk. All her granddaughters read… The service was finished-off by a friend's singing the Prayer of St Francis and by members of the Derg Valley Choir, with which I have been singing for the past almost 7 years (about ten members [singing SATB] were able to come). We performed a piano-accompanied hymn of Charles Wesley (very appropriate as my Mum and Dad nominally were Methodists). It was the emotive ‘And can it be’, to the tune ‘Sagina.’
A frequently-received comment was to the effect: ‘…best funeral service I've ever been to…’ The Funeral Director also was most impressed… The event was both simple and dignified. Since it was all in the same room, we were able to move seamlessly into ‘refreshment-mode’.
While Mum was deprived of her 90 candles, they were lit for her funeral service... I must say that the event was a tremendous ‘full stop’ to my mother's Earthly life and was a truly cathartic experience, for my family and for me! Also, I have submitted a short biographical article, mentioning the Faith and a photograph of Mum to North and West Housing Ltd's ‘house’ magazine
Malcolm Lake
Early in October 2002 I flew to Prague for a fortnight in order to meet the friends. They have 8 local Spiritual Assemblies and a National Assembly. They were interested to here about our Council and our clustering process,. In Caske Bodayvitsa there are four or five Bahá'í homes and we were in and out of them - it was so homely. One young new Bahá'í rang me and came round immediately for a cup of tea. We found that she was a wonderful translator. I was invited to see the George Townshend International School. When Ardawan Lalui heard that I had known George Townshend. Personally, he asked me to speak at Assembly at 7.30am! I did some research and the talk seemed to go down well. Two days there made a great impression on me. The school would like at least one British student. They already have one from the Republic of Ireland. Thirty other nationalities are represented and teachers come mostly from Europe. The students have two periods of Bahá'í studies weekly and three Bahá'í prayers are said each morning. During my stay we had two firesides, one devotional, a feast and a tip-top meal on the 19th October. We met lots of people in cafés and altogether it was a most exhilarating time!
Vida Backwell
I would just like to add an additional comment to Malcolm's excellent report published last month. That evening, we had a glimpse of the impact Tahirih’s words and verse must have had on her contemporaries in the wonderful joyful and powerful recitation of her poem, The Promised Day is Come by Lady Rosemary Salisbury. It brought tears to the eyes and joy and yearning to the hearts of those of us who had the privilege of being in the audience that evening. Think how powerful it must have been in the original language.
Dorothy Riordan
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