Looking for Sigmud Freud urn
One day I decided to go ans see Sigmund Freud urn. When I arrived to Golders Green Crematorium I soon realized of being about to experience the most important moment of my current trip to London. I’ve never been in a crematorium before, and the things which strike me immediately are silence and peace. Before me a green field, in which here and there colorful flowers peep out.
A funeral car is coming with the relatives following. I’m almost afraid to disturb such an intimate moment with my strangeness. So I start wandering, one by one looking at the gravestones on the walls, in search of his.
I would have recognized it anyway, because I had already seen it on the internet. So many people, so many urns, but not even the shadow of Sigmund Freud. Finally I decide to ask the office people.
They tell me that Sigmund Freud’s urn is inside a locked room and they call a person to show it. And so I meet a nice and friendly caretaker. Not really young, I would have said from his appearance. He certainly looked like much more young in the spirit.
Sigmund Freud urn on the column
Eric Wallis opens the door and my heart jumps up to my throat. Here is the wooden column on which is placed the Grecian urn, a gift from Marie Bonaparte, in which the ashes of Sigmund Freud lie. On the column his name and the one of his wife Martha. Next to it, on the wall, their sons and daughters.
The emotion is great. The nice and friendly Eric speaks, and despite my uncertain English I can understand much of what he says. He tells me of Freud’s family, Anna, their home now museum. There are books about Freud on the floor, and Eric shows them to me along with documents about Freud and his family.
One is about the day of his death, the signature of the doctor who ascertained his death and so on. He also let me notice the paper where it is written: Freud the king of cocaine.
He tells me that he had met his family and show me something where his name is written. Unfortunately I do not remember what he had taken part in, whether a movie or a book or whatever. He shows me the coins that visitors from all over the world have left and I add my small coin, two cents of Italian euro. “Mr.Freud receives many visitors every year!”he says with satisfaction showing the coins. I’m glad.
So far so close..
I remember the interview to Freud by the BBC, in which his voice revealed the bitterness he felt for being misunderstood throughout his life despite his great contribution to humanity, psychoanalysis. At least, after his death he has not been forgotten.
Eric asks me what Freud is to me, why I came to see him, and there, to my own amazement, I reply: ” He’s like a dad for me.” What do I mean? Transfert? Of course, the transfert. He is the father who understands me. He does understand me … and yes of course, he had understood many men and women … and he would go inside things deeply …
“Probably he inspires me,” I add.
“You want to be a good psychologist?” Eric asks.
“Yes, I do.”
Thank you Mr. Freud
Eric stares at me and his eyes reach me into the deepest. I got the impression that in a few seconds he has succeeded in understanding me more than I know myself. He has a simple, intuitive, loving understanding. He tells me that if I want I can caress the urn, rather stroke it as if he was my dad, and at this point I feel that I’m about to cry. Thank you, Eric. With great discretion he sits behind me, leaving me alone with “dad” Freud.
Thanks Mr. Freud, thanks for being existed, because without you I would have been a psychopath rather then a psycologist. I love, understand and appreciate him. Reading something of his books is like being crossed by a light that pierces the darkness of ignorance and every time something of myself is revealed to me. Deeper and deeper, deeper, deeper into the center of being … Which only happens in contact with the great personalities.
I thank, and I ask him for help, and above all for strength. The transfert is complete. I made a deity of him, I know, but should I care? I feel as filled and I turn back to look at Eric. He asks me to hug him.
Hugging Freud’s urn
The moment turned magic. I do not understand, because reason does not understand, but I feel nicely at the mercy of lovely forces. On the one hand “daddy” Freud protects me, understands me and gives me strength. My defenses are lowered. What prompts me to let me tighten in the arms of a stranger in front of the tomb of Sigmund Freud? Anyway, everything is simple, authentic, intuitive.
There is no need for logic, but for love. Eric knows it, and his embrace gives me more than thousands of words. We smile each other when we separate. I get the impression he feels “compassion” for me. Maybe he realized that I am just looking for a daddy. We hug again, before I go away through the large door where another funeral car is entering, and greets me with a warm ciao. Ciao Eric, I also thank you for this moment of great love, simple and free. And I also thank London, which never ceases to amaze me.