About the service for Ratz
This is what the room looked like.
Before one of the white posts Andrea placed his saxophone but there was no time for pics than.
It did not stay empty for long.
Beside some ten or fifteen members of Ratz family there were about seventy of his friends gathered.
I am very grateful that his sister never questioned his friends right to be there and never gave me a maximum number.
There was "Sackgasse" his kegel- (not quite bowling) friends.
The "Sängerschaft Germania Aachen" his students fraternity.
Severeal of his former colleagues.
Members of his roleplaying group.
Live action roleplayers.
Former clasmates.
His band, that never quite made it on stage.
Filkers.
Some people I never have seen before but with whom I had been in constant eMail contact.
Partly people I had met back when Ratz and I had still been a couple.
Partly friends I had not seen in ages.
I think it was a nice service. We had a theologian for the oration. Andrea and I had met with him last Saturday to tell him about Ratz and after a somewhat indifferent start it got very nice and personal.
We had sent three songs for the occasion, one for the beginning, one for the middle, and one for the end.
In the beginning was a jazzy saxophone piece, in the end a song he'd loved to sing with the students fraternity and in the middle, well, I just had to slip in "Into the West".
I was rather looking at the picture than at the urn on the table.
After the oration we went for a few steps to the columbarium, a place, where the urn is kept now for a year. If we do not want to have it there for longer or decide to have a real burial with a grave and all the ashes will be spilled after that year in a wood in the Netherlands (because you are not usually allowed to do that in Germany).
Everyone had been given a flower in the beginning and there were vases beneath the urn, so you could put your flowers there.
Ratz sister Andrea and I were standing side by side, accepting condolences. Not only did she not mind me being there but she wanted me to be there with her, and I am grateful for that as well. Not only because it meant much to me but because most of Ratz friends had never met his sister and thus had in me a familiar (if only in name by eMail) person to approach. And I was able to be there for Andrea when it got too much for a moment. I guess she was glad to have someone by her side who understood how she felt.
There was coffee and cake and such afterwards and a lot of people to talk to.
I am sorry that I could not spend more time with everyone but there were just so many people.
Thank you for coming, for thinking of Ratz, for helping me through the last years.
And for reassuring me about the picture. His sister liked it quite well and everyone agreed that this was so him.