Fecal Vocal
A few years ago my best friend Jo died after a long battle with cancer. I was relieved because it had been a hard fight and she was so tired and I am glad to have had her in my life and been in hers but the unfulfilled potential of the life she should have had still rings unjust to me. We were supposed to be god parents to each others kids, chief bridesmaids at each others weddings and bingo partner in later life.

I sent her Mum a card asking if there was anything I could do to help out but couldn't bring myself to write an empty platitude so I decided that I would also tell her Mum why I loved Jo so much, in that card I opened my heart completely and I couldn't re read the note all the way through before the words started to swim on the page.

A few days later, Jo's Mum rang me to say that there was something she would like me to do and that was read the message I wrote to her in the card at the funeral. Of course I said yes but I didn't know how I would manage not to dissolve right there at the lectern.

On the day, I sat next to Paul, a mutual friend of mine and Jo's, we were both pretty nervous as he was doing a reading also so I was holding his hand and trying to stop the tears that were pooling in my eyes from spilling down my cheeks. Jo had requested Hymns and as the first bars of 'Morning has Broken' were heard, they were shortly followed by the false start of Paul's flat, nasal, foghorn tenor echoing around the church. At first a smile played across my face, then I could feel the flutter of sick laughter in my gut, our eyes met and that was it, the hysteria could not be contained. We both burst into the kind of stitch inducing, snorting, laughter where you just cannot catch your breath.

All the time it was happening I imagined that Jo was there splitting her sides with mirth too and it helped so much. So thank you Paul and thank you Jo, you were the only reason I managed to get through that reading intact.
(GirlOfTheWorld, Tue 6 Sep 2011, 12:29, 2 replies)

Lovely story
Thanks for telling us.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Tue 6 Sep 2011, 12:54, closed)

And a bit brave of you...
when you consider the shower of flappingly negative great clitorises that make up the contributors to this site.

Good one.
(judgetheobscure used to sweep in butchers' shops., Thu 8 Sep 2011, 1:10, closed)