Everything Endures

Quite literally just after I had written down the last word of this reflection yesterday my mum came through the door and told me my grandpa had passed away. Writing this was my way of coping with the waiting and the sadness and I decided to post it on my blog in memory of him. 

ANDREW AITKEN 30/04/1923-08/01/2015

It is the New Year and rather than thoughts of new beginnings and moving forward my thoughts seem to be concentrated on death and dying. Some of these thoughts are brought about due to the consequence of working with adults who are predominately in the winter of their lives. Indeed in winter many seem to melt away from this life in large numbers, some expected others not.

Reasons closer to home are also affecting my thinking and as I write this my grandpa, my dad’s dad, is lying in hospital on the cusp between living and dying. He is ninety-one approaching ninety

two in the spring and when we last saw him on 27^th December 2014 he was happy and content surrounded by every member of his immediate family, my granny, his son and daughter, his son-in-law and daughter-in-law, his five grandchildren with their spouses and his five great-grandchildren with two more expected in March.  He was happy but he was tired and there was a feeling among us all that this would be the last time we were all together. Yet there was no sadness, just joy in being there at that moment in time.

My grandpa’s deterioration in health prompted a text conversation with my friend last night on the subject of death. Admittedly it was not the cheeriest of conversations but it was interesting. We discussed our reactions to death now as opposed to our reactions when we were teenagers. At this stage in my life my other grandpa passed away after years of living with Alzheimer’s disease. My response to his death was to cry inconsolably and internalise the loss I felt. It was in many ways a selfish grief I experienced but then as my friend pointed out “ Teenaged selves are very self centred and experiences of death at that age will be difficult”. So is experiencing a death less difficult now in my thirties  than it was in my teens.

As I have been walking in the woods this morning with our dog, mucking out my horses’ field, cleaning out the hens and walking Ben dog again this is primarily what my thoughts around death and dying have centered on, is it still a difficult subject to deal with? My friend and I touched on this in our conversation both feeling our society is not very confident when dealing with someone who is nearing the end of their life. Rather than looking at the person and allowing a dignified death free from interference, there seems to be a need to turn to medicines and medical settings to try and prolong the inevitable outcome. As my friend rightly pointed out, dying is part of living. The two come as a package and every minute of every day people are reaching a natural time in their life when they are ready to exchange life for death.

This exchange also takes place daily in nature. A queen bee sees through a summer of reproducing then dies having led a brief, productive life. A salmon makes the final journey to its spawning grounds, ensures more generations will follow then dies.  A flower blooms, produces its pollen then fades and dies having ensured more colour will appear next spring. A dragonfly emerges from the pond, finds a mate and after only a day of sunlight dies, the eggs containing the next generation laid and waiting to emerge. Living is natural and dying is natural. One cannot exist without the other.

Looking at it in this way I find death is not as difficult to deal with as it was when I was a teenager, or when I was even younger and at an age when the tears would flow over the death of a stick insect. Death is actually a fascinating and contemplative subject and one which we should not shy away from. Loosing someone will always be difficult even with an understanding that this is their time and keeping them with us any longer would be unfair. However, I believe everything and everyone endures in some form or another be it in the new blooms that emerge in the spring, the dragonflies that unfurl their wings as they leave behind their watery nurseries, the young salmon beginning their migration, the new queen bees pushing their way out of the soil where they slept away the winter or the nineteen family members who are there and together because of you and who all see you as their inspiration.