I don’t suppose anyone really likes funerals. I’ve fortunately managed to avoid them for the past 20 years, since my own dear dad’s. I’ve been in the wrong country or had some equally valid excuse … until the weekend.

What have I been afraid of? A reluctance to be sad I suppose. Just singing hymns makes me want to cry.

Funerals can’t help but remind us of our own mortality. Whatever our thoughts and beliefs on death, and on life, funerals bring us ever closer to them. Laying someone to rest can be a wake-up call. This was for me.

I felt a bit of a fraud sitting there at first. This person had been a huge influence in my early life. Incredibly giving and loving, someone I’d felt very close to and am indebted to. But as time went on and circumstances changed, I guess I got busy, attentions got redirected. Visits dwindled and, not being one for Christmas cards, I realise it’s possible to lose touch with someone even when they live only a parish away.

Then you really lose them. I sat in that church reminded of all the memories. That connection I had allowed to fade came flooding back. I felt filled with remorse and regret for not having done more when we had the chance.

Will that person ever know how they touched my life? How much they were appreciated? Their funeral’s a bit too late to ask.

Perhaps they won’t. Perhaps people never know just how many lives they affect and what they mean to others. For those of us remaining though, I doubt guilt is the most productive emotion to be stuck in about it. What if, instead, we use their passing as a reminder of what that person did (in this case: loved, supported, gave when there was need) and what made them special (generosity, passion, kindness, strength), and we be that for someone else?

We pay it forward recognising that in turn, we may not get thanks. Understanding that our relationships may not last forever, that people may come and go in our lives. And that’s actually OK. Because the energy we invest and the love we show goes on: rippling out, down generations, across borders.

What better way to honour the memory of those who have loved us and gone before? This is not to say I haven’t been inspired to reach out to tell others, whose friendships I may have let slip, just how important they are. But maybe I can also be OK with the idea that we all have a time and place.

Funerals have their place, too. I’d thought that mourning was a private thing I’d do in my own time, but I see that creating a space to get that process under way is helpful — not to be avoided. It was nice to revisit those memories and celebrate a person’s profound impact. A reminder that we all have the potential to give of ourselves and make a difference: and to make the most of it, in the living years.

• Julia Pitt is a trained success coach and certified NLP practitioner on the team at Benedict Associates. For further information contact Julia on 705-7488.