Saturday 19 November 2011

Speaking of death

It is a dark time of year. And we have festivals that bring us light along with crimson red poppies against black to remember. It starts with the ghosties and ghoulies. The saints attempt to appear but they don't have the charisma to blot out the darkness, the mists and the mystery.  I like it. I like the winter approaching and the cool and the regular bright twinkly starlight.

This evening speaking to one of my oldest friends, we found ourselves discussing death. He is a half orphan and I am a total orphan.  Strange and unreal terms to use for either of us. And yet it is true.

Even though for both of us the departures were several years ago, there are times when that deep pang comes forward and very present. When you want to cry out

 " I want my Mummy"

 or

  "I want my Daddy"

For those that have been lucky to be loved I don't believe these feelings ever go away completely.

That is not to say its always sad either. Sometimes in the midst of something amazing happening there is a desire to share it very particularly with one or other parent. The thought skips across the brain like a child on the way home from school with a picture. And then you remember...

When the orphaning is new so many people report thinking they see a loved one in the street. Sometimes its a garment or the way the head is held, their gait, sometimes even a smile can take you there. When it is raw when it is new, it cuts you up inside, slays you.  But later there is a strange unreal comfort from this and even amusement.

Looking around at siblings and the children around you, you see the missing ones. It might be in a glance, a turn of phrase, an attitude to life, a laugh, a bark, a dark one liner.  Sometimes "stuff" appears to skip a generation and new people who did not know Our Originals, are manifesting things they could not know about. Where has it come from?  Is it coincidence?

Then there might be that special  shared look of those who are connected to the ones that went before, as together they observe what makes sense to only them and is an invisible bond between all of them through time.

And we know they are not gone.

3 comments:

ukyboy said...

It's amazing how the mind works. looking at the cover of a favourite book can take yoe through the story held within in an instance. On the night we got the phone call about Margaret's death I was watching Sweeny Todd . Recently i saw the film in the TV schedule and it took me "tardis like" to that very moment in time and the painfull night that followed.

Sarah said...

Yes, its amazing how we can be sent straight back places. Eventually as an observer, less connected to the pain, but initially straight back in as a player in the action, caught up in all the emotion, painful or joyful

Denise said...

So true. I still have times when I think "oh, Dad would like that" or something similar - and he died over 18 years ago! As you say, sometimes you miss them still and it hurts, other times you miss them, but feel ok.