Heavenly Minded

When I first went to Music College I stayed with a dear, elderly lady called Mrs Hurnard. She was a widow and her husband had been a leading Quaker. She was already into her eighties but was as sprightly as most half her age. It was porridge or cornflakes for breakfast followed by an extensive Bible and prayers session...I had to be up at 7 in order to get to college by lunchtime! Seriously, one morning she read the entire book of Jonah before I could leave the house. After a month I had memorised the back of the cornflakes packet!

She ate (and expected me to) apples fresh from the trees in her garden, complete with bruises and copious amounts of maggots and expected a lengthy explanation of the sermon when I got home from the Salvation Army on a Sunday. I stayed at her house exactly one half term (and that was only because I'd paid rent up front!!)

Mrs Hurnard was one of those people my dad would have described as "too Heavenly minded to be of any Earthly use!" Bless her!

Well, this evening we've had a death in the family...and hence our thoughts turned Heavenward. Lewis, my middle son, and I had just enjoyed a couple of hours of great music by Randy Newman, ending with his concert for BBC4 last year, Ieuan (my youngest) had been inspired to go to bed watching Toy Story and we turned our attentions to one of our favourite albums "A Trick of the Tail" by Genesis. We put the disc in the machine, selected DTS (which we prefer to Dolby Digital), balanced the surround speaker levels and had just watched the video to "Robbery Assault and Battery". "Ripples" came next and as Phil Collins soared up to the opening notes of the final chorus Lewis saw a streak of white light emanate from our trusty DENON AVR-1601. The room was filled with silence for a moment then filled with hot, electronic smoke as Denon's spirit ascended to Silicon Heaven! Well, it was a good way to go.

As is our wont these days, Lewis and I immediately turned to Facebook where I announced the bereavement to some wonderfully sympathetic friends. Lewis did the same, announcing that we'd been watching Genesis at the time!

Now, if Mrs Hurnard were still alive and on Facebook, I could have expected this reply from her - but thank you Sandy for inspiring this blog entry and giving me the best belly-laugh I've had in days.

For Sandy replied to Lewis with, "At least you were watching something biblical."

...And lines like that one, intentional or not, make dealing with a death in the family so much more manageable!

:)