The first weekend ! It would have been our fourth anniversary today !
Can hardly believe it ! The time in so many ways has gone so fast and in other ways so slowly ! We have learned an incredible amount, not only basics like the Spanish language, but also how we react to sleep deprivation ! How to interact with people better, although not alway succeeding with that one, as you will find out as time goes by !
Most importantly we have found that we can overcome even the greatest challenges when we put our minds to it ! We choose to do an extremely difficult thing, verging on the insane, but you know, what it paid off !
What an amazing four years we had !
We really wanted a great first weekend, we thought we would have locals rubber necking, seeing what the mad English were up to !
But instead what we got was kind, loving support and encouragement, not just idle curiosity !
Jesus had been a local bar owner, until the unfortunate break down of his relationship, meant that his ex ran the bar and now paid him a rent ! He was so kind, he came in with boxes of glasses for us, wouldn't take any money for them !
He offered to help in anyway he could and he meant it !
He became a great customer and friend, he would pop in for his brandy as he pasted (our bar was impossible to pass, as you have to drive into the sports centre !, but he was always just passing !).
He would bring his new girlfriend down for dinner and late at night when no one else was about they would spend hours playing on the bouncy castle !!
He loved life and had a wicked sense of humour ! Well you can tell that just by the fact that he would come down to bounce on the bouncy castle !
Jesus was a very sick man, he had liver disease and kidney failure, due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed during his life, a landlords worst enemy if you like a drink !
His mother turned out to be the old lady I had tried to help when we first arrived with the devil children that harassed her ! Villages like ours it seems that most people are related to everyone else in one way or another, but I like that !
We had been in the bar about two years when on my way to the bar, I noticed huge amount of cars going up to the cemetery, this always gives me a uneasy feeling !
Barry was already at the bar, as we're a few regulars. Then Checker (works for the town hall, funnily enough his job is checking everyone's work !) told me Jesus had died.
I ran to the toilet, I just couldn't stop the tears running down my face. He was only 46 years old and he had the kindest heart, but now he was gone, he had so much more he could have offered to life and he had robbed himself of that chance, just so sad.
Now what do I do, I want to go to the funeral to show our respects, but how does it work, I had no idea ! It was summer so a great friend of our and someone who knew Jesus well, was over from the UK. Pete and I decided that the cemetery must be for close family and friends, so we would just go to the church.
That turns out to be totally wrong. When someone dies here, everyone, even if you hardly know the deceased, go to the ceremony to show your support for the family. Somewhere down the line I will explain the first time I went to the cemetery and the feeling of total despair that goes hand in hand with it !
So Pete and I are waiting outside the church the street is full of people, I think that the whole village turned out. We stayed far back and just watched, we didn't want to impose ! The people here didn't make us wrong for being there, in fact after the hearse had arrived and before the coffin was carried in, a few people, said come on, it's time to go in !
It was totally unbelievable, the church was not only packed, every chair full, every extra chair full, hardly space to stand, the side aisles full, the back full ! Outside still the street was full ! Our church is not small I guess seating about 300 ish people !
How much this man had been loved, did he even know that he was loved that much ?
The service was lovely, what I could understand, difficult to considerate when you are in that environment, right at the back and not being Catholic myself, I have no idea how these things work !
This was my first funeral here, but unfortunately not my last, with an ageing community and the amount of people we know, I guess we are lucky it didn't come sooner !
Sorry I have digressed again, but Jesus was a big part of the success that first weekend, so only seemed right to honer his memory at this point !
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