It’s funny. The day you lose someone isn’t the worst. At least you’ve got something to do. It’s all the days they stay dead.
– The Doctor, Doctor Who.
The first time in my life that I knew somebody who died must have been when I was around five or six years old. Our next door neighbour, a friendly old man by the name of Eric, passed away. I can very faintly remember my father telling me that he wasn’t going to be around anymore, or something to that effect; that he had died and left us and wouldn’t be coming back. And, retrospectively, I can remember / imagine the great discomfort my father must have felt having to break the concept of death to a small child. And I remember being completely fine about it. Well, my childish brain reasoned, I’d probably see him in heaven somewhere further down the road. So long as I didn’t go to hell for not doing my homework, that is. And then I went back to my life.
I also remember him telling me and my sister that our mother had about 24 hours to live when I was nine. And I remember vivid patches of the day that she actually did pass away some months later when I was ten. And I remember going back to school a few months later and being taken out of an RE lesson before it started and being told that it was going to be about death and being asked if I wanted to help a teacher with something else for a while. And I remember politely declining and returning to class and getting on with life.
It is difficult to find the words that are correct to share without telling too much of what others would rather keep personal, or that some would feel uncomfortable reading. But every year on December 5th, I feel it necessary to, in one way or another, mark the passing of this almost mythical figure in my life. And this year, for whatever reason, I’ve found myself finding memory after forgotten memory assailing me in the strangest of times and places. And whatever the catalyst to this stream of memories may be, I’m extremely grateful. I remember when we got the internet for the first time; I posted onto a forum saying that I liked a particular show, and every single reply got sent to my personal inbox. Alarmed and frightful, I remember my mum comforting me and assuring her irrationally frightened son that it’d be okay. And I remember a dozen other such small memories that had been lost before.
We don’t know what comes after, or if anything even does, and it is therefore imperative that we carry our lost ones with us as we continue through life, motivated by their memory and shaping the world in their stead. And after eleven years, my resolve to do this has faltered not one bit.
Perpetually Perturbed 