I am neither superstitious nor religious. Actually, I think they are much the same thing, but neither appeals greatly to me. They say that things come in threes, which is true but only if you make them and look hard enough for that to come true. But here I am at my third bereavement in three weeks.
Losing Ben Hiscox, the nicest man in the world, still pains everyone in my village but when I was in my local pub the afternoon he left us, I had a message to say that my old friend Ali Arnott had passed on too. I knew Ali well, back in the 1980s when we were activists in the CPSA union, before it morphed into PCS and was ultimately swamped and destroyed by the ultra left Trotskyites of Militant (the Socialist Party) and their fellow travellers. Like Ben, he was also the nicest man in the world. Kind, gentle, funny – I shared many a happy hour (and the odd drink) with Ali and, although I had not seen him for many years, his memory burned bright in my memory.
And today, whilst I shall not reveal his name on here because it has only just happened, my very best friend in the world has sent me an email this morning from his home in Canada to tell me his partner has died following an horrendous illness. Oh yes, and he is the nicest man in the world too and the woman he travelled half a world away to live with and to be happy ever after has now gone.
I’m back to the fairness thing again. And of course there is no fairness. I want my friends to live, if not forever, then for as long as is worthwhile and meaningful and certainly long into their retirement, not years before it.
I spoke to a well known villager at Ben’s funeral last week and he told me he was attending funerals on a near weekly basis these days. He is slightly older than me, but from conversations with others, he is not the only one.
I never met my friend’s partner. He moved to one part of Canada to be with her and then to another and the another is all but inaccessible from the UK, unless you are seriously loaded, so I have been resigned to facing up to the reality I will never see him again. And boy, would I like to see him again today.
I need to get over myself soon and avoid this grief turning into self-pity. It isn’t about me, I just feel my pain and the pain of others. It wasn’t a shock waking up to more tragedy because I was half-expecting it, but it doesn’t make it any earlier comprehend.
More than ever, I am aware of my mortality and it’s a constant reminder that we must do what we want to do in life and soon. Time waits for no woman or man, as we are all finding out in the worst kind of circumstances imaginable.
2 comments
It’s very hard to be alive when you feel that someone maybe more deserving of it has died. That’s how I feel it Rick.
It does seem to hold true, for me anyway, that only the good die young. I have stopped attending funerals, I get too emotionally wrapped up with it and I have a real empathy that goes beyond just attending a funeral. I believe you are an empath too, it’s something that I have found in most people, that I know, who suffer with depressive bouts.
I was picked up on not attending an unnamed persons funeral and found I had to explain myself. It was not out of any disrespect but exactly the opposite. I feel it too much, way too much than most would seem normal.
Unlike you, I am spiritual for if I were not then I could very easily be an out of control lunatic, I find my beliefs a comfort and so I hold onto them. I know there is no proof of an afterlife and that’s another story but I feel you in this mate and I empathise with you.
I am now in the unenviable position where I have no direct family left but I still find myself talking to my parents, my Dad in particular.
In your piece about Ben Hiscox’s funeral, the reading Death is not the end, that resonates with me & I take comfort out of that.
I guess each of us has to find our own way in this life. Sine never do, end up in hospitals and others seem to just be able to let things go, completely over their heads. I sometimes wish I were in that latter group.
I believe you to have very strong empathy Rick & I also believe this is why your writing is very well accepted and taken in by the majority who read it.
I apologise for commenting so often on your posts but I find the topics that you do write about, to be ones that I can relate to.
It’s a beautiful & sunny day out there today, I prescribe a round of Golf and then go sit by a river and have a pint. That is one of my favourite ways to let go of any troubles I have.
Thanks again for sharing.
It certainly was a beautiful day today.
It didn’t seem right after my day yesterday though. It really should have been like the picture.
Glorious sunshine after the loss of a wife was just so wrong.
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