We have a bit of an in-joke in my family. Basically, there’s this thing that we call a ‘goose day’. Me and my four siblings grew up on a farm in the middle of nowhere, so our Mum decided to home-school us to save on hours of travel. She took it very seriously, but thing was, she married into the farming business and wasn’t all that good at it. We’d have our lessons in the shed at the end of the lawn, renovated for our comfort, and Mum was super strict on that being our ‘learning environment’ (so, not the living room). Goose days were when the geese would waddle up from the lake and parade around on the lawn, all threatening. Mum wouldn’t let any of us go outside for fear of being…well, eaten or something, so those became ‘goose days’. Unexpected days off, basically. Then we started using it for everything.
Mum passed away recently, which devastated us all. Her funeral service was in Perth, which was a long drive. Everyone was down, slightly irritable from the long trip, and we’d all come from different places so for some people it meant flying. Not that those are excuses, especially for something as important as a funeral, but sometimes a combination of things makes certain events really hard. So we’re all there after the funeral, sipping punch and smiling at people when we really didn’t want to, when it happened. Right there at the family home, right on the lawn…there appears a goose. Look, none of us believe in reincarnation, but it was almost like Mum was back in the form of a goose to remind us of all those times. Those ‘goose days’ that we used to love, even though we all secretly loved learning stuff as well.
Well, this funeral director based in Perth had a great reputation and had seen a lot of stuff, but a bunch of bereaved children cracking up at the post funeral sandwich party was probably a new one. We didn’t instantly stop being sad, of course. But it’s not a moment we’re going to forget, either…and it made the whole thing so much more bearable.
-Adrian