We’re going to have to talk about death.
I’d
much rather talk about any number of things. I’ve got a lot to say about the
existence of a notwithstaning clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms. I badly want to spread the word about Tilting Biped’s brilliant
production of Macbeth. I spent two
weeks in England recently and have plenty to say about Brexit, climate change,
road signs and Comic Conventions. I still have to compose my retrospective for
Stephen Moffat’s tenure with Doctor Who. . .
But
circumstances bring me to death.
It’s
an appropriate day for it. The air outside is grey, and damp with spittles of
rain. It’s colder than it’s been for a while, not the razor cold of January but
the sad and sleepy cold of the dying summer. All I can see outside is concrete
– there are plenty of trees and grass about it, but it all seems more like
cheap green furniture than anything living or vibrant. All I can hear are the
cars. . .
I’ve
written on death before – pseudo philosophical musings and laments for passing
famous people who’s art once moved me and whose halted output made me grouchy. But
Real People? Whom I actually knew? I’ve not actually been touched by death in a
long, long time. How naïve I’ve been about it. . .
To
be sure, I’ve not lost an immediate family member, but someone very close to me
has. The loss is very real.
It
is astonishing how quickly life can change, how one’s assumptions can fall
apart, one’s rituals disrupted. I woke up that morning thinking the world would
be no different when I went to bed. I was sitting in a choir rehearsal,
serenely mumbling the (mostly wrong) notes of Braham’s Requiem, looking forward to a Barbecue in the evening, and perhaps
a little live music the next day. It was a beautiful Saturday. There was no
reason to think it would be anything but a relaxing weekend.
At
one point, our guest conductor felt the need to share his personal connection
to Requiem. He’d lost people
recently, including his brother-in-law. “It was expected,” he reassured us.
“But there’s never a good time, is there?”
Not
two minutes later, I received a text. There had been an accident, and someone
was being transported to St. Michael’s hospital in Toronto. I had held out hope
that perhaps it could be something manageable, even trivial – a sprained ankle
say. Pretending not to know that no one gets transported to St. Michaels
hospital for a sprained ankle. . . By the time I got to the rendezvous point,
not half an hour later, I had gotten the message that someone had died.
I
am not accustomed to death. I do not understand it now any better than I did
when I was five. I did not grasp the message at first. Honest to god, idiotic
as it was, I seriously thought it meant “in a coma”. Or possibly “dying” -present progressive tense, as in
ongoing, possibly reversible. Grammar teacher though I am, it was a full minute
before I really understood the tense of the verb.
Somebody
had died.
There
followed a long, long drive to be with the family. Of course there was no
radio, and almost no conversation - what could be said? What had happened was
unspeakable, and we were driving to confront the intolerable. It was unbearably
claustrophobic. And the day did not get better from there.
I
confess, I did not know the man well; but liked him quite well, and keenly feel
the king-sized gap he’s left behind. Unlike my (guest) conductor’s recent loss,
this one was not expected, and I marvel at the sheer colossal pointlessness of
this abrupt removal of someone who meant so much to so many. . .I chafe as well
at the helplessness of seeing people I love in pain, and being able to do nothing.
I
can’t even say “this will pass”, because it won’t. Things will never be the
same again.
There’s
only one lesson, or cold - comfort I can take from it all: we too shall pass.
Any time, any where. So we may as well stand tall when our time comes and enjoy
what time we have. I have a feeling the departed would approve. . .
