Mum died in 2009, just a month short of her ninty-ninth birthday, while I was out late with my friends at a Macarthur Astronomical Society observing session. When I ran out of stars, I drove home and Joan gently broke the news to me. It hit me like an express train. However, we had to make quick arrangements to fly to England for the funeral and Joan kept my mind occupied. We arrived in Lichfield a few days later; and with Joan's strong support I seemed to hold it all together and was able to participate in the funeral preparations and prepare Mum's eulogy.
Shortly before the day of the funeral, I went with my Brother-in-law, to inspect the ancient twelfth-century church and test the music we had chosen. It had a very expensive-looking, state-of-the-art sound reproduction system, with speakers strategically placed to produce the best quality sound possible. I wandered out into the church and gazed up at the ancient ceiling while Alan played the CD.
When the majestic Intermezzo began to powerfully waft through the rafters, it came at me like a wall of sound - it came from the ceiling, it came from the walls and it came from the floor. It was playing for my lost Mum and in fact it felt like it WAS Mum, the loving Mum of my childhood. It stunned me and I completely fell apart. The reason I was back in England had hit home suddenly and forcefully with no prior warning. The sheer beauty of this soft but passionate piece, the music she loved, in her church, where her funeral would soon be held, stirred my emotions so much that they swiftly overcame me, like nothing has ever done before.
The parish church of St. Chad's, Lichfield, looking across Stowe Pool from the spire of the cathedral.
On the day of the funeral, the church filled with family and friends, I steeled myself and thought I would be ready for it this time but again the music's poignancy overcame me, this time whilst I gazed at Mum's flower-covered coffin.
Ever since then this stirring music has triggered my emotions. When Andre Rieu enters my lounge room to play it on tv, I am sent right back to that small English church, to the overwhelming beauty of the "surround-sound" music and to the painful memory of delivering the eulogy for my Mum.