I wondered too how her life might have been different as a result. I wondered how many of us standing there saying our farewells would have said and done things differently had we known how little time we would have with her. A sad celebration of a truly unique little spark of life. On one level, we cognitively know this isn’t true, but we don’t ever really believe it.Ī few weeks ago, I went to a funeral. We think we’ll figure it out one day, learn to do the thing we want, reconnect with that person we fell out with. Overdoses, gangs and guns, drug deals gone wrong, the hard reality of life on the streets… alternatively, their ‘later’ might come after 5, 10, 30 years in the hell of addiction.Īlways, we run out of time. I’ll come back later when I’m ready.” As they walked out the doors, I knew there might never be a later. They would say, often before deciding to leave treatment, “I’m too young to do this. When I was working in residential treatment with people recovering from drug addiction, one of the things I used to hear that disturbed me most (and I heard a fair few things) was a common refrain amongst the youngest residents. … I can’t think about it too seriously for long either, as you can see.
Like a sort of morbid parrot sitting on your shoulder … “AWK! Polly gonna DIIIIIE!!!!!” Despite this, he urged us to imagine the spectre of death as a constant companion, a reminder to live well. Painful, dangerous, terrifying and possible only in brief flashes. There are exceptions – anybody who has ever been severely depressed, for example, will know what it is to deeply consider the end – where suffering may cease, but so too will all other possibilities.įor many of us, however, thinking about our mortality feels like what psychotherapist Irvin Yalom called ‘staring at the sun’. Generally speaking, the human brain doesn’t comprehend this well. There will be a slightly crumpled white funeral booklet bearing your name in flowing script, your face peering out of cabinets and pressed against piles of papers in that drawer where all the important stuff gets shoved. One day, that phone call will be made for you. Someone has gone, someone who held up a part of your world, and now you can feel cracks spreading as the sky threatens to fall in.
The kind that hits you like a vicious kick in the stomach, leaving you unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to form a thought?
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