Why I am still grateful despite one of my most difficult weeks - Christa Ackroyd

The funeral of my dearest friend Kathy did all that funerals do. They gave us chance to cry, but the chance to remember. And to smile. They are almost the last thing we can do for those we have loved.

Yet in all that busy planning, when there is so much to be done, so much to organise, we put away the actual act of grieving for the moment... there simply is not enough time.

That begins now in the aftermath. In the silence. You will understand. You have all been there.

But if funerals can be joyous for one who had so much more to do and see and left us far too soon, then this one was just that.

We not only honoured Kathy in music and in song, in words and in readings but also in the coming together from all walks of life from across the length and breadth of the country. And it was just as she would have wanted.

So many old faces from Kathy’s long association over many many years as an actress and broadcaster. And not just through her partner Richard.

She was performing on national television from the age of nine. She was to be one of the main presenters of a teenage Saturday morning programme, Calendar Kids, which was so ahead of its time, long before daytime telly was even a thing.

And so there were many there from the old Yorkshire Television, as we who ever worked there will always call it. And in an awful way it was lovely to see them.

I know she would have been thrilled. But as I looked out to a packed congregation it dawned on me that Kathy knew how to pick her friends well. Some were local, some were from acting and broadcasting. Some she had met after Richard had died, others they had known together. Some were from childhood.

They ranged in age from 14 to 90. Local tradesman who had looked after her for twenty years since she decided she could never move away from a house where she had been so happy.

The farmer’s sons who lived next who insisted on carrying the coffin. Even the local undertaker was a friend. They came because they had worked with her.

They came because they had enjoyed her wit an intelligence at the local quiz in the village hall. Or they were drawn into her world at the gym, the WI, the local pub. Wherever.

Because once you were a friend of Kathy’s you became a friend for life.

It is strange when you are so so close to someone that you feel all her friends are your friends too. And this week as we sang our hearts out.. she would have absolutely insisted upon it.

I looked around a packed old fashioned village church filled with flowers and love and yes laughter, I realised that there were many I knew by name and by stories but not in person.

But there was always going to be a connection. If Kathy liked them it was odds on I would too.

And the wake was a heady mixture of raucous laughter and tears but above all it was a celebration. And isn’t that what funerals should be anyway.

But then, like all funerals, it is over. Nothing to do, no-one to whatsapp nothing to text, nothing to decide. I had to go back to her grave the following day to reflect and even comprehend what had happened. And that life had changed forever.

Which is why Mother’s Day was so perfect. My beautiful daughter and my equally beautiful granddaughters had known. They had known that I needed quiet and warmth and nurturing.

And so the girls had picked daffodils from their garden, been shopping for my favourite food and insisted on doing everything right down to the Yorkshire puddings themselves (with daddy’s help). And they are only seven and nine. And it was perfect.

Of course Kathy would have been the first to hear all about it.

So where am I writing my column from this week? A hospital bed for a foot operation that couldn’t have come at a worse time. Or could it? Now is the time to stop and reflect. And four weeks in crutches in my new home will certainly give me time to do that.

Sometimes you just want the world to stop so you can get off. It spins too quickly. Other times fate does that for you.

And so as I look around this hospital in Bradford I am so so grateful. Yes it is tired with sticky tape on the floor to hold the lino together and computers that are slow and outdated. But the care is not.

This is the city where I gave birth to my daughter in a hospital with bars at the window in a former workhouse.

Where the world’s expert in my form of arthritis chooses to be based and the top foot surgeon possibly in the whole country is in charge of breaking and putting back together my arthritic foot.

This hospital saved my mum fifty years ago when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and yes it is where Richard Whiteley was taken twenty years ago when he became so ill.

And Kathy and I will never have a word said against it.

We pay nothing to be seen. And are treated with respect and care. Although I did have to object to the yellow arm band which showed, because of my age apparently, I was considered at risk of falling.

That may be so but more because of my propensity to being gormless than my strength. We laughed when I threatened to do a cartwheel to prove it while remembering that four hours of surgery will put paid to that for a while.

But while we seem to be having a whine about everything it is important to remember all the NHS a does for us without us needing to flash a credit card.

My lovely friend who, we buried this week was treated by the NHS. They provided her with the kind of drugs which cost a fortune to research and were not cheap to by. Yet they were to given to her for more than three years during which time her condition improved beyond recognition.

Cutting edge treatment gave us the best of memories. We travelled, we celebrated and we made plans until the miracle ran out.

But they were the best of times because we knew how thankful we were to be having them. New house, new foot, new acquaintances renewed at the funeral of a very special friend. Time I think to sit and reflect a while. And that I think will be a good thing.

What choice do I have? Although come to think of it I am pretty nifty on crutches. Oh and I was wrong when I said funerals were almost the last thing we can do for those we have loved and lost.

The most important task in the weeks which follow is that we take time to sit and remember. And that’s once thing I have plenty of on my hands to do that’s for sure.