If you have watched the Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke’s emotional eulogy at young Phillip Hughes’ funeral and not been ever-so-slightly moved, then it’s possible you have a heart of stone, but maybe not. We are all different, that’s for sure, and we are not all moved by the same things. Nothing wrong with that.
I do not have a heart of stone and I am not embarrassed to say that I welled up a bit when he started speaking.
I have some experience in these matters, having buried my mother, my stepfather and more recently my father, at whose funeral (actually, it was a life celebration) his sons, including me, gave speeches. There are, of course, important differences here. My parents had lived their lives, no matter how premature their passing was to me, but they mattered to me like parents do. They are gone, long gone in the cases of my mother and stepfather, far more recently in the case of my father and all that’s left is an empty space, a permanent reminder of my own mortality.
Phillip Hughes had most certainly not lived his life to anything like a conclusion. He was greatly loved by everyone who knew him and his death was unquestionably premature. No wonder people were stunned.
Clarke’s speech represented courage of the utmost degree. My speech to my late father was in a lovely old funeral home to, I don’t know, 150 people. Also, it was in Ottawa, Canada. I had done much of my grieving before and during the flight, falling to pieces in ways that never happened to me following the passing of others. It was not that I loved him more than I loved anyone else who had died in my family before him. I think grief and uncontrollable emotion creeps up on you when you’re not thinking properly or when you’re not prepared. For example, when I travelled to Canada for the funeral, I had not prepared myself for any part of the journey. I had prepared myself for a lot of the things that would happen, like meeting my brothers and my dad’s lovely wife, and I knew I would be speaking at the service. I knew I would be meeting with my dad’s friends at various times during my stay, I knew I would meet them after the service. It all went off okay. I didn’t get near breaking down. But the flight was a different thing. Arriving at Heathrow, checking in, boarding the plane, looking out the window as the plane roared down the runway, people talking to me. I was a blubbering wreck, I wondered if I was having a breakdown but it was just emotion, me letting my feelings go, not being prepared for what it might feel like.
My speech was littered with anecdotes about my dad and it felt right. This was a man, after all, who had been there, done it and talked about it throughout his eventful, rich life. There were even a few laughs from the assembled mourners, if that’s what you call people at a celebration. I wanted people to remember my dad in a good way.
Michael Clarke did not have my luxury. He was speaking in a crowded room about someone from a different family who had died suddenly, tragically at an absurdly young age. An almighty shock. I think it was far harder for Clarke than it was for me and I am not sure I could have done what he did. A million thoughts must have gone through his mind as he spoke and they certainly will have been before he spoke. My father died of an illness that had gotten hold of him some two months before he died at the age of 81. Phillip Hughes was gone, suddenly, tragically, at the age of 25. I can make sense of the death of an older person, even though it was the last thing I wanted to happen, but I am struggling to make sense of the death of a kid, because that’s how he looked to me. Just some young kid with a twinkle in his eye and a massive talent that will now be unfulfilled as he left this world at 63 not out.
It really isn’t fair, is it? But then, nothing in the world is based on fairness. We are here by the accident of our birth and we leave the world usually either by another kind of accident, illness or old age, or perhaps a combination of all three. (Other ways of dying are available, but these are the main ones.)
I hope by next summer when Australia come to play cricket in England for the Ashes, that I will once again be willing our fast bowlers to give the Aussie batsmen a really hard time and send them home empty-handed. A hard, fair contest and may the best team win. I think that will happen too because life must go on and the Ashes is the greatest cricket contest of them all.
Phillip Hughes will not be there next season but the spirit in which he played the game he loved must be. If anything, the players of both sides owe it to him as much as themselves.
The grieving will never end. The passage of time will dull the pain in different degrees but life is never the same again.
The passing of a loved one, family or not, reminds me of why I left my job last summer to spend less time at work and more time doing the things I want, I need, to do before time catches up with me.
