What

to say

There’s so much in just a couple of weeks and all of it matters. Pope Francis died…my eldest grand daughter had her birthday, she’s 7 now and has learned to roller blade. I had a deeply spiritual experience at a still space day, 5 women together around a table, not a seance but a silent meditation based on a Wendell Berry poem. The silver birch in Val’s garden fluttered its sharp green leaves on the highest branches and I cried at the sheer beauty of it. Winner winner chicken dinner at the bowling alley with my lucky 10 bowling ball. I walked through a Bristol cemetery where 300,000 graves are resident and fell in love with them all. Friends came to stay overnight, we talked a lot and the Irises and bluebells came into full flower. We moved effortlessly from April to May. This is the rumble of life because in among these events, a mother buried her son after an 8 year battle with cancer. He was 20 years old. I didn’t know him, I know her. I feel her pain.

Something has happened this week, can’t be framed in words, but my sensitivity to the world, the one I walk through and live in, is so close to the surface I feel as though I’ve been flayed and my nerves lie exposed and raw. The fragrance of the Iris is beyond beautiful. Early in the morning as the day warms and in the evening when the day is cooling, they release drafts of heavenly scent. I deep breathe them in, I whisper words of love into the folds of their petals. Words of gratitude for all that they give me. It’s vast. Cosmic.

In conversation with our good friends over breakfast, a flying visit, they had a funeral nearish to us, a question arose around plans for how you might want to spend time left, your exit from life, the final show - into the earth or scattered ashes? Not at all morbid, we’re all comfortable with the knowledge that we’re passing through. We laughed about the benefits of this and that, no firm ideas, but some hazy feelings about bluebells and woodland, dappled light and birdsong. It was a good conversation.

I went for a walk after their departure. A hot, sunny morning and this question of how I wanted to live it out arose again. I thought I’d like a little bothy somewhere… away from the busyness. With glorious rocks to lie on if the sun is out. Green grass to walk barefoot on dewy mornings, perhaps even a body of water called the sea near enough to walk beside sometimes. I extended my plan, this simple home would be far enough away from caring but interfering hands to mean that there is the privilege to just get old. Eat plainly and without sophistication. The caring hands would view decline with a need to put you somewhere safe. I, instead, would like to stretch out one sunny morning on a rock warmed enough to lie on and close my eyes, forever. Listening to the world leave me. It’s so easy to believe that the right thing to do in caring for the older ones, is to step in and redirect matters. Preserve and lengthen life by creating a safe and comfortable environment to finish off. Nothing wrong in that and maybe it’s where I’ll mentally have moved to further down the line … but for now the dream is autocracy around how, where and what happens.

My father wanted this I think. I am very like him, increasingly so as I age. He managed to keep me and my caring hands at arms length for a good long while. Living exactly where he wanted to be and how he wanted to be. My fear wanted to sanitize it for him. He resisted. Clever man. Eventually he asked to be closer to family, in miles/kilometres (choose your measure). I’m certain he knew the end was very close and was willing to sacrifice his liberty for the ‘help’ on offer. I organised it accordingly in good daughterly fashion and for the last 6 weeks of his life he stayed in a care home just around the corner. I saw him every day. They made him look tidy and clean. Did a good job on his care, but he wasn’t like himself. Illness, age and submission change everything. He died and looked like him again. Interesting that freedom returned to his physicality once he’d cast off the shackles of this mortal coil. He smiled as though privy to some fabulous secret.

In the meantime, living well is important. Breathing deep by the Iris. Walking in the woods. Reading poetry. Eating simply. Talking with friends…often. Music and dancing. Lying on stone in the sun. Hugging my children and grandchildren at every opportunity. Finding a peace that’s your own and allowing an elastic flexibility around any plan for the future. Till the next time dear ones, life continues right up until it doesn’t. Live it well.

A