When the great writer, Sir Terry Pratchett died in the spring of 2015, his assistant Rob Wilkins wrote this on his twitter account:
“At last, Sir Terry, we must walk together. Terry took Death’s arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night. The End.”
Like your humble author (me), Pratchett was an atheist, a humanist and a secularist and the words, which I think are beautiful, accurately reflect the world, and life, as it is, and not perhaps how we might like it to be. “The black desert under the endless night. The End” is how I believe life will end, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary.
It’s a bit of a drag, isn’t it, when you realise that eternal life, as promised by those of ‘faith’, turns out to be a myth and that the so-called ‘meaning of life’ is nothing more than procreation, but it’s a useful reminder to all of us that this is not a trial run: it’s life and it’s the only life we will have. When it’s over, it’s over. Isn’t it?
Once again Sir Terry comes to the rescue:
“No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence.”
That’s how I came to write this.
I drove past your house last night, thought about your vast collection of books, CDs and DVDs and our conversations about every subject under the sun until the cancer that took hold of you finally ended your life.
And you, I thought of you, the artist, but more importantly, the mother and wife as I saw your art and could see you through my mind’s eye.
Every time I hear a Stevie Wonder song, I think of you always. When I think of certain places, the memories come flooding back and now I am able to laugh, as well as continuing to mourn.
When I drove past your local pub the other day, I swear I could see you sitting outside, puffing on a roll up and drinking a pint that the brewery had named after you. And every time I see your favourite football team’s name on the internet, and when a Wedding Present gig is announced.
When the England cricket team is playing, or for that matter Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, I imagine you being there, as you so often were, glass of fine wine in hand. I also remember you as a doer, someone who walked the walk rather than talking the talk only, as so many of your contemporaries did.
I think of you, my best friend, so often because there was so much to talk to you about, even just by email. You remain my first thought when something that drew us together, like a new album by a favourite artist, or an anniversary of a trip we did together, comes to light. I want to write to get your take, which will always be smart and funny. I wish I had flown across the pond to see you, just once. ‘What if?’ are the ugliest words and in your case they apply to me.
These are just some of the people we lost last year and the ripples they caused have not died away. The supernatural is a complete myth, created from the imagination of humans, but I do still meet the dead in my dreams, where for a brief moment in dream world they come alive. I read nothing into it. But sometimes they become living creatures again, just like other people in my life who really are still alive.
Do the ripples last forever? Maybe they do. I am well beyond mourning the deaths of parents and grandparents, most of whom died decades, sometimes many decades, ago, but maybe the ripples that represent their lives, achievements, values and gifts they left behind have still not died away.
“The black desert under the endless night” awaits us all. If we are lucky, we too will leave ripples on our little pond until we are finally dead. And those ripples continue to give comfort to those left behind. We cannot ask, or hope, for more.
