Sunday, October 2, 2011

loss

I just found out that my godmother's sister, who'd been sick for some time now, died yesterday.

Grief... there is no escaping it. I find its inevitability terrifying, the knowledge that people you care about are in pain and there is nothing you can do. I wish I could go to the funeral, but it's just a bit too far, and I have to work and be here for the kids, and I know I am not really needed. There is family enough there to look after each other, I am grateful to say.

The last few times I've seen my godmother, it's struck me how much more like her older sister she is growing. After I got off the phone from my friend, I was jolted by the memory of the dream I had this morning - my godmother, looking elegant and beautiful in black and white clothes, was talking to me in a big house that I think was my own family home, though grander. She told me that she was planning to go - I don't know the right phrase - to opt for voluntary euthanasia, I think to avoid being a burden, despite being still well and young and all the things she is. In the dream I felt a huge rush of loss and emotion, and took her hands and earnestly expressed my great dismay at the idea, and how much importance she held for me. It was an alarming dream, and I feel slightly unsettled to realise that her sister had died the day before.

I feel so sad. For her loss, for the everyone's loss and for what everyone has to go through. Protracted illness doesn't really make the loss any better, I think everyone's just worn down by the impending outcome, the sadness to come.

We have lost such a unique and fine person. A person of humour, and intelligence and poise. It seems stupid, what, to wish that no one ever died? People have to die. And yet... well, I am just scared of loss, of grief, of the formless, expansive breadth of it.

I hope that my friends can laugh and cry and be with each other and make a good thing out of their loss, in being together. And after that, the world is a little bit smaller, and lonelier, but there are new, small people in it to fill in the spaces left. That's just how it is.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0107/1224286963352.html

8 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Oh baby. I don't have the answers either. I'm sorry for your loss. I am.

Jo said...

Thanks, Mary.

Annah said...

So beautifully written, I could feel the pain of it. Thinking of you Jo...

Mick said...

Love what you wrote at the end there. :)

Jo said...

Thank you, Annah.

Mick! Nice to see you. Have you any news?

Mick said...

My little boy is over two months old already. He's great. Thanks for asking :)

Jo said...

I wish you were still blogging! I'm sorry I missed that great event. Wholehearted contgratulations :) I'm happy for you. xx

Jo said...

You know, I would Love some photos, Mick. Love them. Mail me!