Today is Celebration Day when we are asked to remember the people we’ve loved and lost. My first reaction to the idea, was a groan. Really? Who needs another dedicated day? There are already more of them than there are days in the year, so some have to share. I’ve never taken any notice of Mothers’ Day, or Fathers’ Day, (and neither, sadly, have my children), let alone Potato Day, Upcycling (what’s that?) Day, Black Cow Day, or International Pisco Sour Day. There’s even a Love Conquers All Day, for heaven’s sake.
But I’ve come round. When someone important to us, who inspired or helped us, or whom we greatly loved, dies, we mourn them painfully for a period – and then stop talking about them altogether. Of course, that period of uncontrollable sudden tears and night-time misery, and later the weeks of joylessness, must be gone through. But after the tears, surely we shouldn’t mentally seal the beloved in a box and bury them. There’s relief and happiness in talking about them, in sharing old stories, laughing again at their idiosyncrasies, remembering why we loved them. It keeps them alive to us. But in our modern crammed lives we don’t often do that, and maybe Celebration Day will remind us that it is a fun thing to do.
Celebration Day is a largely spontaneous grass-roots movement, with no commercial aspect, no fundraising target, no political or religious connotations and no rules or regulations. Started a few years ago, it has grown in many directions. People celebrate in all sorts of ways, maybe gathering to watch their loved one’s favourite film, walk a favourite path, play a favourite board game, or just meet in the pub to raise a glass to absent friends. Judi Dench famously plants trees in remembrance and talks to both the trees and the departed friends they were planted for.
I do it with food of course. I never make my brother James’s Red Dragon Pie (a red bean casserole so called because it encouraged his children to eat it) without thinking of him. If I’m with any of his family it stimulates memories and laughter, and also his widow’s affectionate jibe that it wasn’t his recipe anyway but hers.
Jamie was the only person who would tick me off if I got too pleased with myself, like the time I asked my secretary to get him on the phone but then kept him waiting while I finished another call. He was the only person I wanted to speak to when newly widowed. I’d sometimes ring him at 7 pm, the time my husband and I would unfailingly quit working and meet for a drink on the terrace or in the sitting room, or, if apart, would call each other. ‘Ah’, Jamie would say, ‘It must be 7 pm. Time for a bit of brotherly love?’
There was an exacting Cordon Bleu teacher who insisted we chop parsley to a fine dust
Because I’m so old there are a lot of people I miss. There was an exacting Cordon Bleu teacher who insisted we chop parsley to a fine dust and wash the spinach seven times in icy water (both edicts long ignored) and instilled in me a love of cooking and respect for the best ingredients. And then there was Sir Peter Parker, my husband’s best friend and my business mentor: he proposed me for Businesswoman of the Year ten years in a row before I got it, he encouraged me to get involved with the RSA (Royal Society of Arts) which I ended up chairing, he critiqued my speeches and generally pushed me.
So maybe making a deliberate decision to think about those lost friends, to talk about them or generally honour and celebrate them is a good idea. And having a national day to jog us to do that, seems to be working. Like Remembrance Day, but joyful.
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