death

Talking to dead people

Soft heartedI wanted to talk to you this week. Wanted to tell you that I took your earrings to the jeweller. He is going to make them into a pendant.

I know you would be happy because now I will wear them, instead of just keeping them in a drawer and taking them out every so often to turn them over in my hands and lament their old fashioned ugliness. The gold is excellent of course, but you knew that. The jeweller and I didn’t even talk money. He realised their worth, and it wasn’t just the metal.

You’d like him. He’s only interested in the best and most interesting pieces. He makes his jewellery by hand.

Just as we had finished and the jeweller’s wife was writing the notes and sealing the envelopes, I wanted to look one more time. Sentimental and soft hearted, I turned them over in my hand one more time. Did you change your mind, she asked. No, I said, I just wanted one last look.

 

Death and other friends

In 2007 while Helen was dying, I was torn. Torn between wanting her to die, and not wanting her to die. Sounds simple now, easy almost. A or not A. When she died, we would stop suffering, but we would stop having her too. We would sleep, rather than fret, but how selfish I felt.

Death however, has other plans for us all. We become the worst version of ourselves when we are dying. The selfish, bitter, mean and egotistical selves that we spend a lifetime from early childhood trying to repress, trying to pretend we were not, we are. Death makes fools of us all. Read More