The Gathering

Brian Garratt

The Gathering By Brian Garratt

My day was a sad, fantastic, happy and strangely weird day. It was my brother Stuart's funeral.

To give you a little background, my brother had been living up north in Sutherland, having recently separated from his wife. To pass his time he had started using an internet chat room concerned with Scottish history and music, and had been chatting with an American woman in New York State. An Internet relationship followed which eventually led to him moving to America and marriage. I couldn't make the official wedding but managed to go over a few weeks later when they had an old and historic exchange of vows over an anvil in full Scottish regalia; kilts with everything.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, he had been living there for three years, I had visited a couple of times, when I got a call to say that he had passed away. So with the help of family and some very good friends, to the tune of one airline ticket and five hundred pounds in my pocket, and a plastic tub of Scottish soil in my carry on bag, I made the sad journey over.

American funerals are an unusual affair; they have what is called 'sitting in day' in the funeral parlour. This consists of the close, immediate family going in the morning to pay their respects, and then the rest of the family and friends coming in throughout the day to pass on their respective respects and condolences.

My brothers open coffin was set up at the front of the parlour; he was dressed in his kilt, (The Blackwatch Tartan). People would walk past and say a short prayer or perhaps put something in beside him, a photograph or a small memento, and then they would either leave or stay in the hall chatting.

Stuart loved to talk and tell stories; he would have talked to the devil then invited him in for a chat and a wee cuppa. He was that kind of person; he believed everybody had a story to tell. Therefore, he made many friends in America, especially in the Scottish and Irish folk music scene. They all came to the funeral, and his wife Cecilia insisted they bring their instruments, because Stuart loved his Scottish heritage and its music. He always said that funerals should be a celebration of life, so we celebrated. We had a day of music, songs, poems, story telling, laughter and tears, but most of all laughter. People told of how they met and got to know Stuart, and about the jokes, he pulled on them.

One of his friends, a Native American flute player, Mark Thunderwolf of the Sioux nation; asked if he could perform an Indian prayer ceremony for Stuart, 'The call to the spirit guides.' He changed into his ceremonial costume with feathered headdress and explained to us what he was about to do. He said it was 'an invitation to ask for the presence of the spirit guides and spirit animals to come and share their energy' he then began the 'Spirit Call'. It was awesome; like a scene from a film. In one hand he held eagle feathers, and in the other, a mixture of white sage and lemon grass which he burnt, and then wafted the smoke over the coffin. He chanted and danced in a circle in front of Stuart, he then played three tunes on a Navaho wind flute, 'Wolf Spirit Song' a prayer asking for guidance and protection, 'One Feather's Death Song' a memorial for a fallen brother, and another called 'Shunke Witko' (Honouring Crazy Horse) to honour a great warrior amongst people. All of this was for my big brother, a Scotsman, born in Helensburgh and brought up in Dumbarton.

Everyone there said it was fantastic. Even the funeral director said he had never had such an amazing, uplifting, and enjoyable day in all his time carrying out funerals. It's funny to say, 'it was an enjoyable day;' but it was.

At the graveside, I empted my tub of Scottish soil over his coffin, so he would be at rest in a covering from his native land.

At the end of day, Stuart's wife Cecelia and I, with more laughter and tears, talked about him. She told me that he said he would like to come back as a deer and roam the hills, and that he would always be at her side to protect her. We then heard a noise outside; I went out with a torch to look, and there was a red pickup truck sitting along the road from the house, as I shone the torch it drove away.

Cecelia said she had a fear that her ex husband would come back, it had been an abusive relationship, and she was scared he would try something now that Stuart was no longer around. She said the truck was his. After trying to calm her fears, I finally got her to go to bed. However, about three o'clock in the morning she came and got me saying she had just had a phone call from her brother telling her there had been an accident, and her ex husband was dead. She kept saying Stuart had kept his promise to protect her. I thought maybe that she had dreamt it, so I called her brother and he confirmed her story. It was a strange feeling to say the least. During the morning we got more information from the police. We found out her ex had been drinking most of the day, and that his truck had left the highway and rolled down an embankment, turning over a few times. An eyewitness, a woman, had been driving behind him and she said he had been all over the place before suddenly swerving off the road and crashing.

She told the police he had swerved to avoid a deer crossing the road.