The funeral

I didn't know how I would feel once the actual funeral came round.

With my sisters, I cried a lot in the days immediately following my mother's death last week. But after breaking down in a big way last Wednesday evening and pouring out a load of fears and feelings of guilt (did I make the right decisions in the hours before my mother died? Were there things I could or should have done for her that I didn't?), and being reassured and comforted in a big way by both of my sisters, I have felt very calm, and have only occasionally found myself in tears, and even these have only lasted a few seconds at a time.

My partner Chris has been immensely supportive throughout my mother's final illness and since her death, and that has also given me more strength to cope with all of this than I thought I would have, given the depressive illness with which I've struggled for some years.

But as the time of the funeral approached, I really didn't know how I would react when the hearse turned up at the house, and even more, during the actual service.

The calmness continued, however, for which I was very grateful. It meant I could help my sisters and my mother's cousin Claire, and that I was one less thing for them to be concerned about.

When we arrived at the crematorium, I paused in the doorway to greet the guests who had been waiting in an anti-room for us to arrive. Along with my aunts and uncles and cousins, and members of my brother-in-law David's family who had come to know my mother well over the past 11 years as a result of her living with Beth and David, it was also lovely to see my friends and colleagues Ann McMeekin and Kath Phipps. I was very touched that they had come. Particularly Ann, as I knew how difficult that decision must have been for her, given the similarities in timing with the death of her father a few years ago (see Ann's own blog post about this). The fact that she chose to come to my mother's funeral meant a lot to me. And the fact that both Ann and Kath came is entirely in keeping with the level of support, practical and emotional, that the team at work have given me. I will always be immensely grateful for that.

Something that had come to feel very important to me was that I should be able to stand up and read the two short poems which we had found, by Robert Burns and Joyce Grenfell. The first conveyed quite beautifully how Claire, my sisters and I felt about Joyce, my mother. And the second conveyed what she might have said herself if she were able to be there with us in person. I will always be glad that, at that point in the service, the calmness returned, and I was able to stand up and read out those two poems.

Another good memory of the service that will always remain with me is the fact that, as the minister recounted details of Joyce's life, and the person she was, people were able to laugh gently at the anecdote about her fixing the chimney and hauling up the vacuum cleaner onto the roof to clear up the debris.

Joyce was a remarkable woman - highly intelligent, practical, undemonstrative but deeply caring - with a streak of mild eccentricity and determined independence, and would, I think, have enjoyed the fact that we could smile as we remembered her.

• In loving memory of my mother, Joyce Smillie (1927-2006)
• A few photographs of my mother