The intimate way we said goodbye to my friend’s mum reminded me that the pandemic has forced us to value the little things

If my friend’s mum had lived a few weeks longer there would have been many more of us at her funeral. As it was, we were among the permitted 30 in number. I was greatly honoured to be invited. Patricia was the formidable, much-loved matriarch of a large family I grew up with. My friend, one of her five children, works in Malaysia; the Covid rules meant, heartbreakingly, he couldn’t travel.

It was a beautiful, simple ceremony, in the incredibly pleasant setting of Kidderminster’s Wyre Forest crematorium, after which we all gathered at one of Pat’s favourite places: a fish-and-chip restaurant in Broadway, Worcestershire. There, I sat with my friend’s sister and three brothers, and their families, laughing as we reminisced. It was a memorable afternoon that would have had Pat’s heart singing.