After placing the coffin on the stand at the front, the pallbearers all bowed their heads in respect before retreating to sit with their families. The music faded and silence echoed in the church for a few long moments. All eyes were on the coffin with the sunflower wreath on top of it, a wreath that matched Claire’s favourite dress. A dress he knew she was wearing today.
Although the weather wild and woolly outside, Jasper felt hot and was finding it hard to breathe in the church. Joanne took hold of his hand and held it tightly as the priest began the service.
‘We gather here today to celebrate the life of Claire Joanne Lombard, to pay our last respects and also to try and bring some comfort to Claire’s husband, daughter, parents, family and friends who have been deeply hurt by her tragic death. Although we have all come from different places, we have one thing in common. Claire has touched our lives, as she did anyone who ever met her. I personally knew Claire through the tennis club and although she always told me she wasn’t a particularly religious person, we had a few deep and meaningful conversations during our friendship, in which I came to understand she was a woman with a great sense of spirituality.’
He went on for a few more minutes, speaking about death and how all life has a beginning and an end. He quoted from the bible and then even read a few verses of Shakespeare before urging Jasper, Claire’s parents and all who loved her to hold onto their memories and continue always to remember Claire in their own special way.
Next Tim was invited to the front to speak on behalf of Claire’s family.
‘Well, this sucks,’ he said as he glanced towards the coffin. ‘My sister was many things to me—she was bossy and over-protective despite being younger than me, she was my best friend growing up and is still one of the first people I turn to for advice. We grew close as children when I spent a lot of time in the hospital with Mum and Dad sitting with Claire during her long stays there. So close she thought she had the right to tell me who I could and couldn’t date.’
He glanced over to his wife and their two year old son, Theo. ‘Hannah was the only girl Claire ever approved of and the day I introduced them, she told me if I didn’t marry her, she’d never forgive me.’
Laughter echoed throughout the building. Tim paused a moment, wiped his eyes and inhaled deeply before continuing.
‘My sister was a fighter and an inspiration in everything she did. From an early age, if she wanted something, she went after it with everything she had until she got it. When she was diagnosed with leukaemia, she decided she wanted to live and that’s what she did. No one was prouder than me when she kicked cancer in the arse, and I stupidly thought that meant she’d live forever.’
Tim spoke for a few more minutes, sharing more memories and talking about Claire’s love for her unborn child, another thing she’d pursued with her stubborn dedication. Jasper thought Tim may have had more to say, but emotion finally got the better of him and with tears silently pouring down his face, he touched his hand to the coffin and then went back to sit with Hannah and Theo.
Polly took the mic next. Today she wore a bright pink dress that could have been one of Claire’s, where usually her choice of clothing was totally different.
‘This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,’ she began. ‘I’ve never been good at public speaking, but I’m going to try and hold it together long enough to tell you what my best friend means to me. Claire is like no other friend I’ve ever had. She’s courageous and fun and always up for adventure, yet at the same time she’s the most thoughtful and sensible person I know. She always looks out for me and never lets me go off to do anything crazy alone.’
Again the audience laughed as Polly shared some of those crazy things she’d dragged Claire into over the course of their friendship and Jasper found himself laughing as well, even though he’d heard the stories many, many times before.
‘When I had children,’ Polly continued, her voice turning serious again, ‘even though Claire couldn’t easily have them herself, she was genuinely happy for me and no one could have been happier than I was when she announced she was going to be a mother as well. I honestly can’t comprehend facing the rest of my life without Claire at the end of a phone line, but my heart breaks even more to think that she’ll never get to experience the one thing she wanted more than anything. I’m not the best with words, but I’d like to finish by reading a piece by my favourite Aussie poet—Penelope Bruce—that has helped me navigate my grief these past few days. I hope it might help you all as well.’
It feels like winter is here to stay
I wonder if it’s because you’ve gone away
And so the cold and rain remains because my heart is sad
Maybe the beginning of spring is fickle
Because every day tears course and trickle
Down the sides of my face and brush the sun aside
Maybe the sun is reluctant to shine
Around a heart as heavy as mine
And so in empathy hides behind the clouds
Don’t be shy spring, it’s your turn now
The seasons must go on somehow
So hang your warmth up in the sky and shine
Because although my heart is sad
Your life and sunshine makes me glad
And reminds me of the goodness and light still here
So come dear spring and let’s be friends
And while we know that all life ends
Today we remember to live our life and shine
Polly lifted her head again and looked directly at Jasper. ‘I will always love Claire,’ she said, ‘and I promise I’ll always be there for you and Anaya, to talk about Claire whenever you want to, to laugh and cry and to help your daughter know her mother.’
Then she turned to the coffin and blew a kiss. ‘Farewell, my friend. I’ll miss you.’ Taking a tissue from her cleavage, Polly buried her face in it as the tears she’d managed not to cry while speaking broke free.
Jasper watched her return to her family and fall into Scotty’s arms as their children looked on in bewilderment, and he understood exactly how they felt. This still didn’t feel real.
‘Sweetheart.’ His mum leant close and whispered into his ear. ‘It’s your turn. Do you want us to come up with you?’
‘No.’ Wendy let go of his hand and he forced himself to stand.
The few steps to the pulpit felt like the longest walk of his life. And as his hands gripped the wooden edges and he stared out into the full-to-capacity church, he prayed that the words would come.
‘Claire and I didn’t have time to ready ourselves for her death,’ he said eventually. ‘And although I’ve had over a week to prepare myself to stand up here and talk about my beloved wife, every time I tried to make some notes my mind went blank, so forgive me for just blurting out whatever comes now.’
Jasper swallowed and somehow continued. ‘I fell in love with Claire the first night we met. You may not believe in love at first sight but there’s no other explanation where she and I are concerned.’
Almost forgetting about the teary-eyed faces watching him, he went on to describe that first night and then the five years they’d lived, laughed and loved together. At some point he felt a tear snake down his cheek and another followed fast, but he didn’t wipe them away. He kept on talking about Claire, wanting, needing to get everything he’d locked up inside off his chest.
Finally he tore his eyes from the gathered crowd and looked over to the coffin with the sunflower wreath and two photo frames on top. One contained a photo of him and Claire on their wedding day, the other a shot of her lying on their bed with Gerry and Sunny draping themselves over her. ‘I wish it was me in that box instead of her,’ he admitted, ‘yet at the same time I would never want Claire to experience the pain I’m feeling right now.’
Tears pouring down his face, he stepped up to the coffin and looked down. Imagining her lying inside looking up at him, he spoke in a low whisper. ‘Goodbye, my darling girl. You might
now be gone, but my love for you will never die.’
Then he slowly made his way back to the pew, unsure how he managed to walk when everything inside him was broken.
After that the priest invited anyone else who so desired to come up and say a few words. It touched Jasper’s heart that so many people chose to get up and do so. When the last person stepped down from the front, the priest thanked everyone for coming, invited them to head to the club afterwards for refreshments and then stepped back as the slide show Claire’s family had put together began.
‘Dancing Queen’, another of Claire’s favourites, exploded from the speakers as a cute baby with honey-blonde hair and big brown eyes appeared on the screen. Her childhood flashed before them—even in the photos of her bald in hospital, Claire’s smile filled her face. Jasper reckoned there wasn’t a dry eye in the building. His mum shoved a hanky in his hand but he didn’t want to use it.
The tears were good, the tears felt cathartic.
As her early years transitioned into adolescence, her love of flowers became obvious. Until she was about twenty-five, the photos were of Claire with her family, her friends and her beloved cats, but as ‘Dancing Queen’ gave way to Taylor Swift’s ‘Fearless’, the images were much more recent, mostly of him and Claire, and each photo brought with it a memory that would forever live in his heart. There were pictures of their wedding, of them in hot air balloons, on holidays, in their garden, shots from Christmases and birthdays.
But it was the most recent photo that undid him.
A photo he’d taken himself barely two weeks ago. Wearing her favourite maternity jeans and a pink floral top that showed off her pregnant state, Claire smiled proudly at the camera as she cradled her twenty-nine-week bump. The baby might not have been genetically hers but from the moment the doctor had implanted the embryo into her uterus, Claire had loved their unborn child with everything she had. It was hers in all the ways that mattered and those feelings shone from this photo.
Guilt filled his heart that he hadn’t given Anaya the love Claire would have expected. He’d stupidly blamed their baby for her death and although he’d sat by the incubator every day since, he’d mainly done so because it was expected of him. But now as he looked up into Claire’s eyes, he silently apologised and made a vow to do better.
The photo of Claire pregnant seemed to linger on the screen longer than the others, but as the song drew to an end, one final image appeared. There was Anaya, sleeping (as usual), her hands curled into tiny fists and tubes sticking out of her dainty little nose. Jasper finally saw what his family and even Harper had seen from the beginning.
A beautiful little miracle—all his to love and protect.
His heart, which had held only pain since Claire’s death, suddenly beat faster as he stared up adoringly at his little girl. He couldn’t wait to get back to her, to cradle her close, to hold her tiny hand, stroke her soft head and tell her how much he loved her.
As Jasper thought these thoughts, Taylor’s voice faded and James Blunt’s ‘Goodbye My Lover’ replaced it. The pallbearers approached the coffin, bowed their heads and lifted it from its resting place. His parents and Claire’s stood on either side of him and he let their mums link arms with his as they followed the coffin out of the church to the waiting hearse. The last time Jasper had walked down the aisle of a church it had been as a newly minted husband and he couldn’t have been prouder with Claire by his side.
Today, although unbearably sad, he was still proud. Proud of Claire and proud of what they’d achieved together. Proud of their little girl.
Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend, he silently told her as James Blunt’s voice echoed through the church. He did feel hollow, exactly as the song said, but he also knew now that he could and would go on. This knowledge made it so much easier to stand alongside Claire’s parents and accept the hugs and utterings of sympathy as the guests filed out of the church.
When the final person had paid their respects, Jasper climbed into his car with his mum and dad and drove to the club for the wake. Claire’s parents and the rest of their family followed in a procession. The funeral directors were taking Claire to be cremated and Jasper couldn’t help feeling relieved that he wouldn’t have to watch as she was lowered down into a vault.
Trying to feel grateful that all these people had come to remember Claire’s life, he parked his car among the many others and went to mingle. He’d barely stepped inside the hall when someone offered to get him some food. He remembered Mike mentioning that the locals had generously offered to take care of the catering, and he accepted a plate piled high with homemade pastries and cakes even though he wasn’t hungry.
Making small talk with everyone—even close friends and family—was exhausting. Everyone wanted to tell him how much they’d loved Claire and share a special memory of her with him, and although he appreciated the sentiment, he just wanted to get back to the hospital. He now accepted that nothing was going to bring Claire back, but believed that he would feel closest to her when he was with Anaya.
After what felt like forever, he surreptitiously dragged his mobile out of his pocket to check the time. His heart sank when he saw that barely an hour had passed. How long was a respectable time to stay at your wife’s wake? He knew where Claire would want him to be right now.
Joanne caught him looking and came up to sit on a plastic chair beside him. ‘You know, I don’t think anyone would mind if you snuck away now,’ she said. ‘This has been a draining day for all of us, but you must want to get back to Anaya.’
For the first time he could nod his head and admit this was exactly how he felt. ‘I really do.’
She put her hand on his knee and patted it. ‘We haven’t had much time alone, but I just wanted to let you know that you will always be family to me and Mike. If there’s ever anything you and Anaya ever need, anything, I want you to come to us.’ She sniffed. ‘As you know we almost lost Claire once before, and sometimes over the last week and a bit, I’ve asked myself why fate spared her then only to take her now.’
Jasper placed his hand over the top of his mother-in-law’s and squeezed it. ‘I’ve asked the same thing,’ he admitted. He’d wondered if she’d always been living on borrowed time and if her time to go had really been twenty-one years ago when she’d got cancer as a kid.
‘But whatever the answer,’ Joanne continued, ‘I’ll never regret those extra years we had. I’m glad that because of you my daughter knew how it felt to love and be truly loved back, and that she also got to experience being pregnant, something she thought she never would. Now all of us need to love and look after her beautiful baby for her.’
He stiffened a little at Joanne’s words—did she somehow know about the ambivalent feelings he’d had towards Anaya? But then he nodded and wrapped his mother-in-law in a tight hug. ‘Yes, we do,’ he said, ‘and I promise that will be my number one mission in life from now on.’
After that, Jasper made his goodbyes and then headed out to his car. His mother had driven him up in it from Newcastle that morning and when he’d said he was leaving, she’d offered to come with him again, but he’d told her to stay in the Hunter with his dad. She’d objected of course, but he’d insisted.
‘I’m looking forward to the drive to think in peace. No offence, Mum,’ he said, ‘but I need to work out how to go forward without you holding my hand at every step. Dad needs you back at home, helping with the business while I’m not able to, and now the funeral is over, you can’t keep your lives on hold.’
She’d sobbed, hugged him and then let him go, but not without making him promise to call her when he got there.
It started to rain halfway to Newcastle and although he was impatient to get there, he forced himself to slow down and drive like a granddad. Getting into a vehicle now felt like a dangerous occupation and he found himself so much more aware of other cars on the road.
When he finally parked at the hospital, he let out a sigh of relief and hurried inside, dust
ing the rain off his jacket. He nodded at the woman behind the NICU desk and then scrubbed his arms up to his elbows. This had become a habit over the last nine days, but for the first time he did so not due to hospital rules and regulation, but because he couldn’t bear the thought of taking any germs in to Anaya. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing her as he had her mother.
His pulse sped as he strode down the corridor. He couldn’t get to his little girl fast enough. It seemed like days, not hours since he’d seen that little face.
He found Harper sitting in the same position she had been when he’d left—her head bent over the incubator, her hand poked through the hole—and wondered if she’d moved at all throughout the day. He silently cursed himself for not thinking to bring her a plate of food from the wake.
‘Oh, hi, Jasper,’ she said, glancing up as his shadow fell over the incubator.
She sounded surprised to see him but she didn’t remove her hand.
‘Hey.’ Going to the other side of the incubator, he pumped some of the sanitiser gel from the bottle on the wall, rubbed it over his hands and then slipped one in through the hole. Although he desperately wanted to hold Anaya properly, he’d make do with this until the nurse came over. He stroked his finger—which looked ginormous next to hers—over her little hand and actually whimpered.
‘You must have missed her,’ Harper said.
Trying to swallow the lump of emotion in his throat, he glanced up from the tiny face and met Harper’s eyes. ‘This is the first time I’ve ever willingly touched her,’ he admitted, and then immediately regretted it. What kind of monster would she think him if he admitted he’d wished Anaya dead instead of Claire?
‘Oh,’ was all she said.
For a few long moments, they stayed there looking for all the world like two normal parents holding their baby’s hands, but this wasn’t a normal situation and suddenly he felt compelled to share with this practical stranger.
The Greatest Gift Page 26
