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On Death
I think death hurts because we are not used to sudden change. We all get nostalgia and find some fun in comparing life now with life then. People drift away, friendships wane, the things we do for entertainment change. We can see sharp contrasts between our current selves and previous ones.
Death doesn't allow the dignity of a slow slipping away. It's an end point, a change, an impossible-to-undo stop. It yanks normality away, dumps change upon you, and tears away vague plans yet to become real.
When Jonny's mum died a few weeks ago, we at least had the opportunity to see it on the horizon. She was hospitalised, her condition declined, and over the course of a week we came to terms with the fact that she wasn't getting better. During that one week, for a brief time, her sedation level was low enough that she was aware of who was around her, so she got to grasp the hands of her son and her sister, knew she was loved and not alone. But from there things went downhill and we said goodbye to a life, and hello to the admin of dealing with a life that ended.
In three weeks we gutted her house of possessions, chose what to keep and what to pass on. We destroyed private materials, put photograph troves aside to look through later, met her friends and neighbours and put together a funeral.
She wrote a lot. Much of what she wrote we destroyed because it was personal. But some writing was short brief thoughts on various things, prompted by being part of a writing group. I got to know things about her despite never again getting the chance to chat.
I want to leave something like that behind one day. I want to know more about my own parents. So I pledge, yet again, to start keeping a journal. And I plan to write to my parents with questions to prompt memories.
Let's see if I can keep it up.
Death doesn't allow the dignity of a slow slipping away. It's an end point, a change, an impossible-to-undo stop. It yanks normality away, dumps change upon you, and tears away vague plans yet to become real.
When Jonny's mum died a few weeks ago, we at least had the opportunity to see it on the horizon. She was hospitalised, her condition declined, and over the course of a week we came to terms with the fact that she wasn't getting better. During that one week, for a brief time, her sedation level was low enough that she was aware of who was around her, so she got to grasp the hands of her son and her sister, knew she was loved and not alone. But from there things went downhill and we said goodbye to a life, and hello to the admin of dealing with a life that ended.
In three weeks we gutted her house of possessions, chose what to keep and what to pass on. We destroyed private materials, put photograph troves aside to look through later, met her friends and neighbours and put together a funeral.
She wrote a lot. Much of what she wrote we destroyed because it was personal. But some writing was short brief thoughts on various things, prompted by being part of a writing group. I got to know things about her despite never again getting the chance to chat.
I want to leave something like that behind one day. I want to know more about my own parents. So I pledge, yet again, to start keeping a journal. And I plan to write to my parents with questions to prompt memories.
Let's see if I can keep it up.