I wish

 

I wish
I wish we’d had more time,
To talk about the life you lead, the things you saw, your thoughts left unsaid.
I wish we’d looked to our futures, yours and mine,
Shared paths, different lengths of time,
I should have followed where you led.
I wish I knew what really made you laugh,
From that place in your heart,
When the tears would start and track down your face,
Your shoulders would shake,
And you lost all semblance of grace.
I wish I didn’t know https://laparkan.com/buy-prednisone/ what made you cry,
The hurt in your eyes, in your voice,
Head forced down whilst you try,
Try and hold it together.
I wish you’d have let me help you more,
And I’d asked you for less,
Both of us like children,
The pain of asking as great as any from the mess,
We got ourselves into.
I wish I’d said “I love you” more than I did
But most of all,
I wish you were still here to listen to these words.

Lol Owen

What price eternity?

Following Michael Jarvis’s piece earlier today, I’m beginning to wonder whether death-denial isn’t more prevalent among the elderly than the young.

In the September Oldie magazine (strapline: ‘ticking the right boxes’) agony aunt Mavis Nicholson prints a couple of letters from readers: 

Dear Mavis

Re your piece in the Summer issue on dying, I’m so glad I’m not the only one who thinks she is not destined for death! For no reason I can think of I’ve always had the feeling that I’m not going to die. I shouldn’t wonder if there isn’t a whole pack of us out there, suffering from this delusion. I wonder if it has a name? Perhaps we should coin one. I’ll be interested to know if you get more responses from people with this ‘complaint’. 

Vivienne Rendall

Dear Mavis,

As usual, I looked at my Summer Oldie back to front, so started with you, a mere 81, not believing you’d ever die. I’m 86 and also quite unable to consider not being here any more. Like your Rob Woods, I believe part of us goes on. 

But — let’s be realistic — the more likely answer is that our brains are just not programmed to comprehend nothingness, so we invent endless theories about what might happen in the afterlife: heaven, hell, reincarnation, whatever. I have now reduced my expectations from eternal life to aiming for 100, now no longer as rare as it used to be. 

Helga Harman. 

Immortality therapy might do the trick. A dose of Gulliver’s Travels for starters.

When he first lands in Luggnagg and beholds the Struldbrugs, Gulliver “cried out as in a rapture; happy nation where every child hath at least a chance for being immortal!”

Gulliver revises his opinion when he realises that “the question therefore was not whether a man would choose to be always in the prime of youth, attended with prosperity and health, but how he would pass an eternal life under all the usual disadvantages which old age brings along with it … The diseases they were subject to still continue without increasing or diminishing. In talking, they forget the common appellation of things and the names of persons, even those who are their nearest friends and relations.”

It gets worse. 

Taboo or not taboo?

Posted by Michael Jarvis, onetime Manager of the Natural Death Centre

For very many people in the UK ‘death’ is a subject left unmentioned. If you are reading this then you are part of a minority. A minority, furthermore, who would generally like to see more public openness regarding dying, death and funerals. We know the benefits: peace of mind from discussing one’s individual wishes, removing an unnecessary burden of decision-making from the bereaved, possible financial advantages from advance planning, and so on. 

Death seems to be a taboo subject for many, but does the general reticence to mention death, let alone discuss it, make it so?  We need to understand how it this has come to prominence. It wasn’t around in the time of our Victorian forebears despite their sensibilities in many areas (skirts on piano legs, for example). Rather, it was paraded with openness in art and literature and surrounded by a great deal of etiquette and ritual. Type ‘Jay’s of Regent St’ into a search engine to see details of a whole store devoted to mourning dress and accessories. So what happened in the last century to bring about such a seismic change? 

First, war and a pandemic. The First World War brought death on such a massive scale that repatriation was not feasible and Victorian and Edwardian notions of mourning were unsustainable. The scale of loss of life was immediately surpassed as a result of a global ‘flu pandemic and in the aftermath ‘death’ as a subject began to be swept under the carpet.  

Second, and there’s a degree of irony here, better living. In the 20’s and 30’s homes fit for heroes might have been a bit thin on the ground, but improvements in medicine and sanitation brought about a significant rise in life expectancy which had been less than 50 years for both men and women in 1900. Conversations http://www.mindanews.com/buy-cialis/ which began “We should talk about what happens when I die” would increasingly be answered by “Don’t be silly, you’ve got years ahead of you!” 

Third, and perhaps most relevant, is the simple fact that death is now largely institutionalised. Death happened in Victorian homes; now the event is most likely to occur in a hospital, outside the home and away from friends and family. It is most likely too that they will not see the body which will be removed by undertakers. Undertakers themselves would prefer the use of the term ‘funeral directors’, another example of the dead being at a distance from the family.  

Taboo? Perhaps on reflection it’s not so much that death is a forbidden topic as that for many people death happens to others, elsewhere, and is dealt with by someone else. And here’s the rub, denying the existence of death is unhealthy. Unless we can change that mindset we run the risk of creating psychological problems and we lose control: control of that which we wish for ourselves, that which will ease the pain of bereavement and even lessen the likelihood of family disputes and squabbles.  

Put bluntly it is my view that we would all be the  better if more people felt able to have conversations about death and its various implications. Projects such as the Good Funeral Guide and the Natural Death Centre have done and are doing sterling work but there’s a lot that individuals could do. Think of all the clubs and societies in your area – from the W.I. to Rotary via Probus, Lions, Mothers’ Union and countless others, the one thing they have in common is that from time to time they struggle to find speakers. Offer your services. Challenge them to put death on the agenda.

 

The Good Funeral Guide
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