When I was young I found death terrifying. Perhaps I will be terrified when Death comes for me, I'm not making any promises! However, the more "other" deaths I experience, the more dying becomes the new normal. Yes, it diminishes our lives and relationships. Our world becomes increasingly smaller with each passing. We suffer the losses. Yes, this is all true. You know what I mean.
Aging can seem like a great battle; the kind where you know you are losing but it still must be finished with courage and valor. So you fight on, with comrades falling all around. In my last post I talked about how, in an alternate universe, I might have become a good soldier. I feel that way again today. The living endure. Because I am a mother and a grandmother, I will start cooking and baking. There will be people to feed.
 |
| Saw palmetto growing after a controlled burn, Lake Louisa, Florida |
I am sorry about your loss. Although someone recently explained to me that that phrase is the least helpful and the most condescending one. Maybe I should more honestly say; I am at a loss expressing what I feel reading that you have lost someone close to you.
ReplyDeleteDeath when I was younger always came as a dreadful shock, at least briefly. I think aging helps to accommodate the thought of death to an extent, to not just move on and pretend it will never happen.
Thank you. I quite like the phrase "I am sorry about your loss."I think it is the truest and simplest comment. I appreciate both those qualities. And yes to what you say about aging. I have most certainly lost that ability to pretend.
DeleteSitting at the dining room table, writing Christmas cards to my relatives and oldest friends, I realized that the list is getting smaller as my cousins --most 10-20 years older than me-- die. Out the window I can see a tree with just one leaf left, dried up and twisting in the wind. Soon I will be that leaf as the women in my family are very long-lived. But that leaf now has a superb view of the river and mountains because it is the last one. At least if I am alone I will be able to see much further than ever before. Many hugs from the mountains-me
ReplyDeleteI wish I was there with you, with a cup of coffee. Lovely thoughts.
DeleteIt would be wonderful! Of course my little town is too little to hold such personalities as the both of us.
DeleteI am sorry for your recent losses. Hard in any case, seems harder when contemporaries go.
ReplyDeletePeace.
Thanks MG. Your kindness is always right out there for the world to see.
DeleteAs Sabine writes and contemplates, "I am sorry about your loss." I also appreciate that way of expressing it. I have tried to write about loss, poems and posts, but it is always hard to really get it right.
ReplyDeleteLoss is a tough one. Especially since the feelings surrounding it keep changing.
DeleteI, too, am sorry for your loss. We will never engage with the ones the generations behind us as we did and do with the ones with us and ahead of us. Sixty-six, however, was a theft.
ReplyDeleteAs I traipse from doctor to doctor, I tell them they need to get ten years from me. Anything less and I'm holding them accountable!
Thanks for making me laugh.
DeleteIt makes me sad that you have lost so many, and always I feel so inadequate to find words to comfort the one who has suffered the loss. Inadequate to find words to comfort you - although I offer that. The English language fails us in this, others have better ways of conveying empathy.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that's the way it happens at this stage of loss in our life's, they seem to come in groups and then a long period of making us forget that it is something we see out of the corner of our eye.
You can run, but you can't hide. I am in serious denial, it's the only way I can keep gobsmacking fear at bay.
I hope for many long years for you and yours, years filled with discovery and joy self and lots fun!
Thanks Liv. I'm gonna give it my best shot.
DeleteDeath is so hard to talk about and it is difficult to express how one feels. The term, "there are no words that will help" is true, but just saying them does give comfort because they are caring and kind.
ReplyDeleteI do not fear death as I once did, but I do fear loss.
Yes, it is the loss.
DeleteMy mom died at 65. She felt ripped off that she didn't get to see retirement.
ReplyDeleteShe was ripped off.
Delete