Ed Johnson-Williams

I watched a funeral of a former colleague on Youtube today. I was at home all by myself. It was one of the hardest experiences I’ve ever gone through.

My colleague was Mary Milne. She managed me at Traidcraft Exchange – soon to be Transform Trade. Mary was an incredibly supportive and inspirational colleague and manager. She was a remarkable person. She lived in Hampshire and worked in London. I worked in Newcastle. I only worked at Traidcraft Exchange for 18 months or so. Although we spoke most days but probably saw each other in person fewer than 5 times. It would have been more without Covid of course.

Lot of people have gone through this experience of live-streaming somebody’s funeral over the last few years. I found it so intense. It’s impossible to know, but I’m sure it affected me more than if I’d been in the church. I wasn’t ready for this.

I sort of assumed it would be less affecting to watch it on a computer. But then I was missing the companionship of other people. I had a view the whole time of Mary’s coffin. I also didn’t sing the hymns by myself. It kind of makes sense that it would be a lot.

Another former colleague who was there in person said the service was great and so many people were there. You couldn’t see how many people were in the church on the stream. Just the number of other accounts watching it on Youtube.

Mary wrote a fantastic blog over the last couple of years since she was diagnosed with cancer. It was not always an easy read. I still haven’t been able to read her last post which is about her thoughts on death. I’m still too sad.