Gran’s sister died. I never knew her, but I’m very fond of Gran and they were close, never having lived more than a couple of miles away from each other for their entire lives. I’ll have to call her tonight, but of course I haven’t got a clue what to say, as if anybody ever does.
I can make sympathetic noises, but I can’t say what I really think. What I really think is that it’s a fucking miserable state of affairs that after loving somebody for a lifetime you ultimately have to watch them die. No matter how I look at it, I just can’t find anything positive in the situation. Sure she had a long and happy life, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about the fact that the unique, special human being that meant so much to my Gran has now simply been snuffed out of existence forever.
If you’ll excuse the melodrama, it really makes me want to keep everybody at arms length more than I already do. I don’t have any kind of faith to reassure me that the people who matter will be enjoying a jolly old knees up on the Other Side, just waiting for me to join the party* and I find the idea that something as wonderful as a human personality can be permanently erased completely depressing.
A good few years ago I was flicking through a copy of the Manchester Evening News while I was visiting my dad one weekend. Out of boredom I started scanning the obituary page and I noticed a small one which said simply: I will never forget today, the day I looked into your beautiful eyes for the last time.
I’ve never been able to forget that line and the picture it paints. I can handle my own mortality easily enough, it’s other people’s that I have a problem facing up to.
*How old are you supposed to be in heaven? Do you have to spend eternity at god’s side with the grumpy, senile old man version of your soul because that’s the state it was in when you died?