Various drafts of this blog have been knocking about for a good few days now and until now I’ve not been able to come up with something worthy of Terry Pratchett’s brilliant quote. Maybe I still haven’t, but, as Sir Elton John (Bernie Taupin, actually) might put it, I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do.
I know it’s brilliant because it makes me think and I can’t stop thinking about the meaning. It’s not literally true if you think like I do that the end of life is the end of life and there’s no ‘afterlife’ in heaven or hell to look forward to, yet you know exactly what he means.
I’ve thought and written a lot about death this year because it has touched me this year in a way it never has before. It’s not just the large numbers of deaths in and around my life, it’s the deaths of people who I was close to. Close family members, close friends are among those shuffled off their mortal coils. I miss them terribly. But I go back to the ripples in the world they left behind.
Sister in law Jen, who lost her life in the Vancouver drive-killings, was a brilliant artist and her body of work remains, as does the love she showered over everyone she met. Best pal Nick, who also lived in Canada, was my go to about everything you could imagine, about music, TV, sport, politics and of course memories going back to childhood. I think of them, if not constantly, then often. In most instances, I am not able to place the celebration of a life above extending mourning. I know from experience that time will have some say in that as they days, weeks, months and years go by.
These ripples can be so many things and may only be a memory. I say ‘only’ when in truth memories may be all we have and the ripples in some cases may only be particular to me. I see it as the same thing, though. There’s certainly a case to be made that says the ripples can be anything we want them to be.
It’s such a beautiful idea that maybe those ripples never die away. John Lennon has been dead for longer than he was alive. But his tragic murder in 1980 has not in any way affected my attitude to the music he made with The Beatles and in his solo career. See also Brian Wilson and every other great composer who lived and then died.
I am not a spiritual person in any kind of supernatural way, although I am a great believer in the human spirit. Some people in my life achieved very little and yet the little they did achieve lives on, beyond the grave, if you will. An act of kindness, perhaps, or something they created that exists long after their death. These are the ripples to which Pratchett referred.
Sure, no one here gets out alive and of course death is pretty final, unfortunately. But what you did and who you were keeps the memory, the ripples, going. And to that extent, Pratchett was right: No-one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
