Dear family and friends of Becky, thank you for coming from near and far to do the last thing any of us wants to be doing, to be here because Becky, beloved partner, daughter, step-daughter, sister, aunt, step-parent, niece, cousin and friend died on a glorious spring day, ten days ago, on Tuesday, April the 18th.

What would we not give for today to be an ordinary Friday morning like any other and we anywhere but here, going about our business, with Becky alive and happy and well.

But we are here, to celebrate Becky and the very good life that she had, and to grieve, for the fact of her death is horrendous. Our lives have been forever altered – first by Becky’s presence and now, irrevocably, by her absence. We are here to acknowledge what has happened to us, to honour our loss as we struggle to carry two truths simultaneously: that life is hard, filled with loss and suffering; and that life is glorious, stunning and incomparable. Becky certainly knew both these truths in her own life, and would perhaps agree with Mary Oliver when she writes:

I’m without words
sufficient to say
how [life] has been hard as flint,
and soft as a spring pond
both of these
and over and over…


Grief comes in many guises – shock, rage, fear, numbness, an inability to concentrate, irritability, guilt, laughter, tears, howls, wails, gratitude, longing, exhaustion, love, peace. Grief will take as long as it takes; there is no point at which we ‘should be over this by now’. We may never get over the loss of Becky, though we may, by slow degrees, find ways of living with it. Grief will have its way with us, whether we will or no. Grief is unpredictable, not always there when we expect it to be; rushing to meet us when we least anticipate it, triggered by the smallest, most inconsequential thing.

The word bereaved means to be robbed, plundered of something utterly dear and precious. So it is with us, here, bereaved of our beloved Becky.

Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.

Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.

Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this –

as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it

as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still

as if it trusts
that its own stubborn
and persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.

‘For the Brokenhearted’ by Jan Richardson.


It is right that we should mourn our enormous loss, lament what is forever gone from here, honour all that Becky has been. And it is right that in our mourning we should not forget gratitude – gratitude for Becky’s rich, fulfilling life, for the myriad ways her life was part of ours, and touched that of so many others.

This service is a combination of what Becky, family and friends wanted. Becky chose all the music you will hear this morning – you may find some of her choices surprising, and the last piece that will play as we leave reflects her humour and joyfulness.

May we find some comfort through the sharing of tears and laughter, of memories and stories, through Becky’s choice of music, through being here together today.