Tag: death

Frailty

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IMG_1365I wish to compare you to a flower.  A beautiful, gentle creature radiating out into the world, with colours so deep, so pure, so animated it is impossible to pass you by.  Waves of silk like petals falling gently to the soft mossy ground around your feet.  Creatures setting to drink and bask in your glory, feeding from your love.

But I also see you are tired now, weary of the world and stooped and frail.  I can see your pain, your struggle to hold yourself above the rest, to hold your head up.  Your weighed down with life, your shrinking now, wilting into a gentle shadow of your previous glory.

Tired now of looking up at the sky, tired of standing tall, of depending on yourself.  You lean forwards, the weight of life weighing heavy and pulling you downwards.  I see  the scars from the burns of the suns rays, burnt and looking for coolness of the moon.

Taking nourishment is difficult for you now, maybe you believe you’ve had your fill, maybe the stiffness of your body, the roughness in your stem prevents you.   Just a sip my love, just wet your lips, one more try before you sleep.

 

Time

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Your glowing face is covered by the shading of the sun

I see your beauty close, is it seen by everyone

Different aspects of you, dance out of your face

Your love along with mystery, desire, wants and grace

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Colours in your aura and your energy expands

The diamond on your wrinkled brow, you see I understand

Your heart is warm, full of love and graced with charity

 Love shines through your stillness as you gaze across at me

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Not long for you in this world now, the time is getting near

But know I love you, my special one, you’ll always be so dear

I will age behind you and my skin will wrinkle too

I’ll follow on in time you know and I will search for you.

 

 

 

Death Songs

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Sing

I collect death songs. Death songs are what I call my friends and families funeral songs, I think it important we get it right and therefore they have to choose what they want played. A song that is just right for everybody coming in, a song for the coffin entering and so on through the service.

These death song lists are kept on my iPhone notes under headings like ‘David Dead’ and ‘Laura Dead’. Each friend gets to choose five songs each and they go along with this to keep me entertained. I take it quite seriously, much to everybody’s amusement. My sister gets me, it was her that started it in the first place. Mum chose her own funeral music and even decided on the guest list, there were people who would not have been welcome. The music was perfect and because she chose it I often play these songs when I’m thinking of her.

There are some real tear jerkers in there among my friends songs and some hilarious ones like ‘I know it’s over, The Smiths and Try Not to Breath, REM. I must tell you now, most of these people are only in their early fifties and could well have another thirty or forty years. A lot of them might well outlive me so it will be important for me to hand these songs over on time.

I think people go along with me as I say, either choose your songs or I will sing one for you. Now it is a well known fact that I can’t sing, I love to but I can’t. My dream is to learn to sing on the quiet and create a video to sing for my friends one last time!

What are your five songs?

Remember Me….

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How will I be remembered when I’m gone from this life and only a memory to those who once knew me. This question troubles me because I don’t want to be thought of for my imperfections.

Please don’t remember me because I straightened the sofa cushions after you finished sitting.  Remember the conversation we had while you sat there and that I listened intently to you and that I was interested in what you had to say.  Know that I cared about you, that I loved you dearly and that I was so proud of you along with the relationship we had with each other, whatever that relationship was.

Please don’t recall my perfectionist ways, I never looked for perfection outside of myself, you were always so perfect. To me you were always amazing and I believe you will truly go all the way. The sun shines out of you and exposes your warm spirit, it’s why I wanted to be with you.

Please don’t think about the fact that I couldn’t sing, remember that I kept trying, and it made you laugh and yes sometimes embarrassed you. We laughed, I laughed and you all laughed with me and sometimes you sang too – I know you revelled in my happiness in those moments as I did yours.

Please don’t think of me as a housewife either, because when I tidied up around you or swept the crumbs from the table while you ate, it was because I wanted to be near you.  I wanted to blend with your energies, feel you and care for you.

Please don’t think about my materialist ways, my love of handbags and shoes and need to bring home a shopping bag each trip out. I was confused, in search of beauty, but nothing really ever meant as much as you do to me.

Please remember that we travelled together in each others dreams, we broke through the universe together and anything was possible. Those frightening ones where we worried for each other turned out okay too, didn’t they, we lived another day here together.

Please remember me as a mother, a friend, listener, cook, artist and a lover of life -just remember that our pathways crossed whoever you are. That we complimented each other for a short while here, and that we knew each other was a gift.

Please think of me with a smile on your face and remember that I will always think of you and connect with you in love.

Goodbye David Bowie

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I’m in shock, it feels like family, David Bowie died without telling anyone he was ill. I suppose he told his real family but he didn’t tell the world, those of us that think he is connected to us on some profound level and our loss feels personal. David has always been around throughout my life, like an older brother, younger father or cousin, uncle or very special friend. David has been singing songs for me and mine since forever. We sung them too, at the top of our voices to karaoke while drunk and silently in times of great pain, he was with us at those most poignant of times. He shaped our youths, he gave us ideas and introduced us to great works of art and thinkers like Burroughs, he allowed us to believe. He had something to say and that something was very important, will we see the world in the same way again.  David gave us strength and belief that anything was possible, he was weird and wonderful, beautiful and sexy. I love to put on Bowie, knowing every word or thinking I do, strum of the guitar and blow of the sax. David was a musical genius, trendsetter and musical rebel and he will be missed by the world.

When my mother died we played Jean Genie as the first song at her wake, it felt like he wrote it for her, it spoke of her to us. I felt that David knew my mum, knew all of us, I think he actually did meet some of the family. I’m sure my uncle Tony, made some of his guitars back in the day, when Tony was still alive, although I think it was Tony Visconti that picked them up and I’m absolutely sure Bill met him on the club scene. Simon’s claim to fame is the day in the recording studios when Bowie walked past and said to him ‘nice shirt’ and my cousin was born on his birthday so there has to be a family connection.

When people die, I like to have their music, know what they want at their service, I have a note section on my phone called ‘Dead Songs’ where I keep my friends favourites. I do have a ‘David Dead’ section but that’s another David, a friend who doesn’t sing very well. We knew my mum’s and we knew Bill’s it was important for us to get it right. Mum chose the exact recording of Judy Garland singing Closer live at Carnegie Hall and Bill, Stan Keaton’s Intermission Riff, of course they had four more each all perfect on the day. David released his own death songs three days before he passed, his last album Black Star, he was a poet, his music and lyrics move me, especially today. David wrote his own epitaph, he was incredible he will be missed.

There is an outpouring of grief today, social medial and TV and Radio have covered it all day. It seems to me watching and listening to the news today an awful lot of people are crying. David inspired generations, he gave us hope. Some think it strange that we grieve for a man we didn’t even know, but we did know him through his music, we knew that quiet, sure and brilliant artist. There is a party in heaven today, or maybe somewhere on Mars as David has gone home. He is rocking with angels tonight and I think it is probably very colourful, none of your white and serene. He has friends there to greet him and we will see him if we look to the stars and believe.

Goodbye David, you will never really truly leave us.

The Visit to the Medium

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‘Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny two a penny, hot cross buns’ she sang across the room almost in a whisper. ‘Is there something about Easter I should be thinking of, is it a message of some sort?’ the young woman asked the medium sitting patiently across from her. ‘The thing is I can’t seem to get the tune out of my head, it is like it is on a loop and I can’t think why. I mean it is only January for goodness sake and I don’t believe I have even seen one in the shops yet, surely we have to get through Valentines Day first’. She looked across the room at the spiritual medium she was visiting who was silently smiling over at her. She wondered if she appeared mad, what did she really hope to get from today.

Rosie had booked the appointment on the spur of the moment, she had seen the card on a shop notice board, it had jumped out at her. She took it off of the cork board and slipped it into her pocket hoping she wouldn’t be seen and scurried from the shop to the park bench, where she made the telephone call to Myra. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded friendly enough. She said in a gentle voice that interestingly she had just received a telephone call from a client cancelling an appointment, and yes, although she had been fully booked today this cancellation opened up a space at one o’clock. She went on to say that maybe it was synchronicity, it certainly felt like that to Rosie.

After making the call Rosie began to feel a little nervous, she hadn’t been to see a medium before and today she was going on her own. Why did she even feel the necessity, what was she hoping for she asked out loud.  She scrolled down through her contacts on her iPhone wondering who she could persuade to come along. Exhausting the list of hopefuls Rosie realised she would have to go it alone, she didn’t want to put it off now she had made the call she didn’t know if she would be brave enough again.

Myra was situated just off of Haydon’s Road, in a little cul-de-sac full of red brick victorian cottages. Rosie got there a little early and walked past the house looking up at the windows. The curtains were drawn against the sun at the front which sent a little shiver through her, would the house be full of the spirits of the dead she thought, would she be frightened. Rosie waited a little further down the road, propped against a garden wall until the time of her appointment. At 12.50 Rosie watched as an elderly lady left the house, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue before getting into a waiting taxi.

On arriving, she was shown into a small siting room, Myra told her she used specifically for spiritual consultations. The walls were painted white, but the room was full of colour. Everywhere she looked Rosie could see bursts of colour, from the crystals, ornaments, pictures and statues to the spines of the many books stacked neatly on shelves. A picture on the wall above the medium appeared to draw her in, the colours where quite overwhelming.  Rosie believed could feel the colours in her stomach, she felt a pull that she didn’t recognise. Surprisingly Myra herself looked quite ordinary, nicely painted finger nails, long blond hair and wearing a black dress with a scarf tied neatly around her neck. Rosie had expected something else, a gypsy maybe wearing silk, bangles and beads but Myra looked like anyone else, although admittedly attractive.

Hearing that Rosie hadn’t seen a medium before Myra had explained a little about how she worked. ‘I don’t give predictions my dear, I see and hear spirit and pass on messages from the afterlife’.  She paused a moment before continuing ‘I have had a lady with me all morning and I wasn’t sure who she was, now that you are here I know that she is here for you.  But first I would like to know what you hope to get from our meeting today?’. Rosie wasn’t sure, she had come on a whim after not being able to get the hot cross bun song out of her head, but now she was here she didn’t have a clue as to what she wanted from the session.  Rosie garbled out how she had the song stuck in her head, she didn’t know why.  In fact she didn’t really know what had brought her here today, she had just not been able to stop thinking about it and then the card on the notice board.  She fell silent feeling a little silly and out of control.

Myra began to describe the woman she had with her, it was clear it was Rosie’s mum wearing the dress that Rosie alway saw her in, the green one with the cream spots and the lace cardigan. Rosie listened silently as Myra spoke of memories from her childhood. A tear trickled slowly down her cheek as she felt her mothers love and the words the medium said resonated throughout her very soul. ‘Your mother has a message for you my dear’ Myra said as she looked directly into Rosie’s eyes. ‘She want me to ask you why you don’t speak to her now she has passed, she wants you to know she is really here, that her love hasn’t died and she is with you every moment’. Rosie looked across at the medium, through her mother who stood between them in the small room. ‘I don’t know what to say’ Rosie whispered. ‘I see her all the time, standing by my bed, looking over my shoulder in the mirror and sitting next to me on the bus, but I can’t speak in case she disappears, you see she is in my imagination, she died last year’. Myra smiled gently ‘ oh you really don’t know you have the gift do you, do you not realise it is you mother you see not your imagination my dear’ she paused ‘Imagination my child is made up of the word image, you have to start believing in what you see’. Rosie looked up at her mother, standing in the room between them and for the first time since her mothers death realised she was still here.

There really wasn’t an awful lot more to be said in the session, the main message had come out straight away. It wouldn’t have been right to carry on with a reading they both agreed, well all three of them in some ways. Myra gave Rosie another card with the details of a development group, she told her it would help her begin to understand work with spirit when she was ready and Myra said she would be happy to talk to her if she had any questions. Myra told her she was very happy to have helped today, this wasn’t what she would usually expect on meeting new clients. Myra said ‘you never know what spirit have in store for you’ as she saw Rosie out.

Arriving home that afternoon Rosie put her key on her mothers trinket tray by the door and sat for a while reflecting on the days events, she thought back over the last year, realising at the same time her mother had been with her all along, she hadn’t left her at all.  Later Rosie opened the freezer looking for dinner options, she was starting to feel hungry. There on the top shelf was a pack of hot cross buns, frozen and forgotten. Rosie turned looked at her mother who was standing beside her ‘thank you for taking me there today mum, for putting the song in my head, for showing me the card, we won’t be needing her anymore but I did need to hear the message to really see you’.

Losing Mum

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My mum died on Sunday 26th October at 23.00. The death certificate states she died the next day as the doctor took a while to get to her, he said he was sorry for our loss but he was busy.

I feel like I’m walking around in a different season or maybe in a different world completely at the moment. It’s not the same here without my mum, but nobody seems to know that, life goes on just like it did the day before she died. Everybody is moving far too quickly and I can’t seem to keep up, time is running away with itself while I am standing still. Life for me at the moment is like watching a movie, I can see what is going on but I’m not really in on the act, I’m sure the credits will roll at some point.

I have thrown myself into being busy, too busy to think, too busy to face anything I can’t face right now. I’m cleaning out mum’s flat with my sister, I’m sorting our mum’s stuff like it belongs to a stranger. There are moments when I pick up some clothes, a jacket or cardigan, and sniff at the collar like a dog looking for a scent. I want to breathe in her smell and feel safe within it again, I close my eyes and imagine she is there with me. But the moment passes and I continue sorting the junk from the jewels.

We stayed those final days in the hospital with mum, the doctor called for the family although we had been there every day. I sat on a chair at the end of her bed and watched her sleep. Those last few days she slept a lot, she was preparing herself for the journey ahead. The day before mum died, she said to the nurse she wanted to press a button and be dead. She had fought the cruel disease for eleven years until the day she wanted to die. Minutes before mum died I prayed for her, I prayed the suffering would end and she would pass over easily. I moved a bottle of spring water that was blocking my view of her lovely face, she told me off for disturbing her. I remember thinking to myself that she never told me off, we couldn’t really do anything wrong in our mum’s eyes.

We called for a nurse as mum needed her morphine injection. It didn’t help this time, she needed something much stronger to help. When the nurse went to get it mum started to pass over. It took minutes, but time stood still, minutes turned into something much longer as we watched our mum die. We tried to help her to go without us, we told her to go and that we would be okay. We told her we loved her and thanked her for being our mum. We were trying to tell her how much we loved her, we didn’t want her to go missing anything, we didn’t want her to forget. She knew we loved her, we didn’t have to say but we both needed to, we wanted to say it for the last time. I have worried since that I was on her deaf side and maybe she couldn’t hear me.

I don’t know the actual moment mum went and if some of those last drawn out breaths were just the body doing what it had done for so long. Were the lungs just responding as they always had while the blood slowed down on its final journey around her body. I don’t even know how she died, was it the lungs or her heart that finally gave up?

I’m not sure what happened right then, my body shook uncontrollably and I couldn’t stop my arms and legs from moving. My sister wanted to help me but also wanted to stay with mum. I didn’t want to be selfish, I just couldn’t help myself. My son said afterwards it sounded like a response to the shock. I’m not sure why I was shocked, I was expecting mum to die, I had prayed for her to be out of pain but I just couldn’t cope with the reality of it actually happening. Losing the one person who had loved me from the very moment I was born.

We stayed with mum for a while, she looked beautiful, she was always beautiful. The lines and the constant daily pain faded from her face and she looked at peace at last. We knew she wasn’t really there anymore, the body was just a vehicle but how we had loved that body, we had both lived in that body for a while. I told the nurses that my sister and I would clean and dress mum, but my sister told me I wouldn’t manage it, she told me to go. I sat in the family lounge while my sister got mum’s body ready for the morgue, she called my mobile to ask what mum should wear . I remember looking up the train times on my phone while I waited.

Three weeks later now and I haven’t cried properly yet, I’m frozen. I think I have put up a wall to protect myself, as I just can’t deal with the reality of mum dying, I can’t cope with it. I understand trauma a little and know this is just my body looking after my mind but I want my mind back. No, that’s not right, I’m in denial and what I really want is my mum back.

Treasure in a coffin.

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A coffin would usually measure about 84 inches in length and be 28 inches wide so with you inside it, however slender you are, there won’t be an awful lot of room for treasure.

The word coffin derives from the old French word cofin, meaning basket or cradle. It seams funny and a little strange to me that we arrive and leave in the same vehicles. I’m wondering if it because each time we travel we are being born in one place and saying goodbye to another.

Although any box used for the dead is a coffin, the word casket is also widely used. It’s interesting that a casket was originally a box for jewelry. I think perhaps we are the jewels in this case and our value is measured by our deeds on earth.

I think what I’m getting at here, you have to stay with me, as I write to formulate my thoughts. Anyway what I’m saying is that we can’t really take anything with us, it will not stay along for the ride. We won’t wake up in the hereafter with the wealth we have amassed on earth any more than a baby is born with a healthy bank account and pots of gold.

So why do we spend our lives building our individual empires, with dreams of wealth being some of the most prominent. Why do we pray for a lottery win over health and happiness and why do we find it so hard to let go of material possessions when there will come a day we have no other option.

I’m as guilty as the rest, I’m a magpie, and I like beautiful things around me. I like things to shine, I polish taps and shine sinks. I bought my car as the tan leather seats went with my handbags. I weigh more on the bathroom scales than I actually should, because of the silver jewelry I never take off. I’m working on this and I will continue working, as I know the treasures we have on earth are nothing more than fool’s gold.

If we could only see each other by looking at the beauty of each individual soul without the material possessions or lack of possessions. I think we would see a completely different picture. We would truly see each other for who we really are by what we give out and not be swayed by falseness. I wonder what colours I give out, I hope they say something good about me.

Lately I have being seeing the natural beauty in nature, the flowers and the colours, the sounds and the smells. This is new for me, I’m a town girl and always busy and on the go. I’m giving myself more time now, I have slowed down, I’m watching and waiting.

I am wealthy in friends and loved ones, I have beautiful people around me but I won’t be taking them with me, nor would they want to come. I know I will die with the people I love around me but that will be as far as they go. I travel alone and the only treasure I want with me is the love of those I hold dear. I know with all certainty that the only treasures I will count as I leave this place are the people I love.

I’m thinking about this today and I’m going to keep thinking about it because I don’t want to forget. The wealth I have now and any wealth I have in the future will be measured in any kindness and love I’m able to give out. The treasure I will take with me will be those memories and achievements. I think they will fit as they will be sewn into my spirit and travel with me.

What will you fit in your coffin with you when they carry you out of this lifetime?

Aunt Sadie

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Aunt Sadie was always strange according to my father, but to me Sadie was wonderful.  The day she died I knew, I heard her voice first when I was sitting quietly in the conservatory.  I looked up and there she was at the end of the garden, stroking the pussy willow just as she always did.  She had been poorly and I knew she was dead, she wouldn’t have got there unaided.   She had no shoes on her feet, her red wavy hair was untied and she was wearing an emerald green dress I hadn’t seen in years.  It had never occurred to me before then that you could wear what you liked when you were dead.  Sadie has told me since that you can be any age you like too, but I’m jumping ahead of myself here.  Anyway that was the day I started to talk to dead people.

From a young child Sadie was my favorite person in the world, she didn’t act like the other grown-ups, she pleased herself.  My father, her brother, despaired that his sister might influence his daughter in some way.  Sadie was full of stories, she collected them and wrote them down in journals she kept by her bed.  She told me once that there was energy in stories and when you recounted an experience and turned it into a story with meaning you were helping the world turn around and adding your own sparkle to the stars.

There were times I will admit that I did get a little scared of Sadie’s eccentricity, like when she would start to talk to someone but there was no one in the room.  The temperature always seemed to drop a little on these occasions but Sadie told me there was nothing to worry about, like attracts like and if you were a good person then that is what you would attract.  After she died when she started to visit me I kept this in mind when she brought along her new friends.  It wasn’t long before I would meet these people without her being present, like when I was shopping in town and a lady waved from across the street.  It took me a minute to realise but when I looked a little closer I could see she was not quite there.  It is like looking at someone through a net curtain, you loose a bit of them, but can see them at the same time.  I can turn it off and on now.  I worried at first in case I would be disturbed in the shower but I can control it, although if anyone really wants to talk they will make something happen to alert me.  Like a dish falling over on the dresser, a book falling off the shelf that you know was tucked in securely or a window blowing open on a calm day.

I don’t mind the interruptions to my life so much now, it’s like having a whole new circle of friends.  Not like the friends on facebook and twitter but friends you actually meet in person.  What is more than that I have found my vocation.

Sadie’s funeral was perfect, just like she wanted it.  She told me just how it should be and to be sure, she was sitting in the room with the family when the priest visited, whispering instructions in my ear.  He asked that we say a little about Sadie’s life for the service.  My father was dumbfounded when I was able to recall events as if I had been there, but it did make for a great day.  Sadie was sitting next to me at the front of the church and clapped and cheered when I read the eulogy just right and as we had practiced.  Okay, there were some confused looks when I curtsied but I didn’t mind as Sadie was happy and it was her day after all.  The music too was perfect and Sadie danced with the others as the curtains closed on her coffin to the tunes she had chosen.

After Sadie’s funeral I started a small business of arranging services myself, they are celebrations of life rather than funerals.  I sit with the family and we talk to the deceased, ask them how it should be on the day.  Plans usually move quite quickly once I can provide evidence through the memories of the person, that they are in fact there.   I’m amazed at how quickly my little business has taken off and how my name seems to have got around without advertising.   What is important to me is that the real story is told and from the person who knows it best, who lived it.  What is also great is how people are able to express their love to each other and know it is heard.

I’m busy enough but as more people have heard about what I do they are realising the importance of involving the dying in their celebration planning before death.  I’m sometime invited along to help tell the stories, but not always.  People who feel they have little control over the end of their life are now able to take the lead if they wish in a small way.  Choose what flowers they like, have the very best photographs around and invite the friends they want to be there.

Sadie does still visit and she is always around if I need her but it is not as often now, she is getting on with being there.  She tells me it is wonderful and she is not seen as strange there, but not to hurry myself as I have work to do and stories to tell.

The Park Bench

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The elderly man sat down on the bench in the park and looked across the lawn to the tennis courts.  It was the first day of spring and the courts were full with youngsters, it reminded him of the love he once had for the game.  He remembered the trip he took to Wimbledon’s Centre Court for the final, all those years ago.   He hadn’t watched a game in a very long time and today was not going to be the day for catching up.

At the top of the bench there was a shiny silver plaque, the inscription in italic read ‘George Knox – loving father and husband, died as he lived in peace and love’.  He looked at the plaque for a moment and thought about George.  The family had done well, the bench was in a lovely spot, it got the warmth of the afternoon sun but also benefitted from a little shade at one end from an old oak.  The oak tree had been there for as long as he could remember, before the tennis courts, before the playground and long before the bench.  The scene, together with the glorious sunshine, was perfect for today.

The man had not been to the park for a very long time, he had never before sat on the bench.  Today was special, he was in the park to meet someone.  He turned to the gates, she would come from that direction and it wouldn’t be long now.  The clock above the bandstand showed it was a little after two thirty in the afternoon and she would have certainly finished her lunch. There she was, slowly entering the park with her walking aid, a small trolley with seat she pushed along in front of her to steady herself.  It gave her some independence and allowed her to visit the park when it was warm enough, today the temperature was just right.

Even from that distance anyone could see Marion was a fine woman.  He didn’t move towards her, he had to hold himself back but he watched every tiny step she made as she walked slowly and purposefully towards the bench.  There was a glimmer of a smile on her lips as she approached, she would be happy to see a space to sit herself down.  Now he was sitting along side her, he looked closely at her profile and again marveled at the fine bone structure and soft almost milky skin.  There was no need for her to wear make-up but he noticed a little lipstick, feint and unnoticeable to most but there all the same.  Marion was wearing her Christmas earrings, red enamel clip-on’s with a little sparkle.  He wondered why she had chosen today to wear them again.

The trolley was left to the side of the bench, she had taken the last couple of steps unaided.  They would not be taking it along with them, he would give her all the aid she needed from now on.  Marion sat on the bench until the sun set over the park.  It was only then that anyone noticed the old lady had died peacefully, her heart stopping gently at three, twenty-three.

George and Marion Knox walked together from the park arm in arm, reunited once more.