Nigel the curate

Had a couple of phone calls from Nigel the curate. They’re the first contact I’ve had with him since I retired, and they flung me right back into working mode.

The first was asking me to remind him which parishioners had shown interest in confirmation (which is a Church of England event where people take on for themselves the vows made for them by their godparents at baptism.) Time was when almost everyone automatically attended confirmation classes at the age of around fourteen, but those days are long gone. Now, few youngsters choose confirmation, but very often older folk decide to be confirmed. The oldest person I’ve prepared for confirmation was 84.

Anyway, I gave Nigel the info he required and suggested other people too whom he might approach.

The second call came that same evening.

Did I remember, Nigel asked, someone who I’d married at our smallest church and who had asked to be buried there when the time came? I certainly did.

I married a young couple there around four years ago, after which they moved from the area to a new home down south. I was amazed to get a phone call from the young wife about a year ago.

“I’m dying,” she said. “I have a brain tumour and it’s terminal. When I die, can I be buried at the church where I was married?”

I was devastated by this news. I consulted the churchwarden and we were happy to agree. Somehow or other the news of my retirement must have reached the young woman rung, for someone had Nigel to ask whether it was still OK, now I’d left. He rang me to ask for details, like the name of the young couple, which I was happy to give him. And of course it’s still OK.

So the good news is that V. is still alive. The bad news is that it sounds as if she’s still terminal. What a married life those two have had.