Death is a hard Act to follow
Despite our techno age we can’t flick death’s pause button, put it on the timer or save it on demand for when we’re ready. If it has a time slot we’re usually unaware of it
Regardless of age, rich or poor, celeb or unknown, death reaches out its bony finger and touches us all. If it not our immediate family death only touches the fringes of our lives. We’re saddened, shocked temporarily by its untimely suddenness until life intrudes again.
If it’s our immediate family we may have a sense of relief especially for an elderly parent/relative where pain and incapacity has robbed them of their quality of life. At the moment of my own mother’s death I felt a sense of relieve. Her suffering was over. She’d no longer have to watch the hands of the clock move slowly as the effects of the Parkinson’s medication wore off and she waited for relief from it again.
Later, I lived with her loss: The stillness of the house after the busyness and activities of the carers, the cold grate where a fire no longer burned, my feet turning of their own accord in the direction of her house. And the joke or titbits of gossip I’d think to tell her to make her laugh – before I’d remember she was gone.
Death touched the fringes of my life again last weekend with the death of a young local man and an elderly man on my Facebook community page.
My sincere thoughts and prayers at their loss go out to their families and to bereaved family everywhere.
We can’t rewind death. Or park life until we have time to live it.
Live it today
Gemma Hill Writeyou Writeme 