Death is one of the few (maybe the only) binary oppositional states we can depend on. It is just inarguable. You are, or you are not (although Schrodinger’s cat muddies the water a little, maybe).
After that, it is a matter of personal and cultural preference. If, for instance, I were asked to describe hearing of the death of a close one (you), it would be something like:
It feels as though a very large, dry log has dropped from a height and landed nearby. Sound and shockwaves reverberate and shake me worryingly. I am stunned to the core. It’s an arid, lifeless log, too big to ignore yet with no discernible purpose but to remind. I curl inwards and try to make sense but the log has sucked up any sense that could be made.
It takes hours to believe in the new state of affairs and to begin to think of the enormity of the loss of you, my dear. If I try to escape these new thoughts, the log lies in the middle of everything as a constant reminder.
The next days are very busy. It’s all very hard work. They say grief is a kind of work. There is sobbing to attend to. It exhausts. And conversations we didn’t finish have to be resolved. And a funeral to sort out. You always hated funerals and went the route of ‘just leave me outside in a bin bag for the rubbish collectors’. Ha. Those were the days before kerbside recycling. Fortunately, a funeral parlour houses you and awaits instructions about coffins, kind of funeral, burial etc. Basket work, humanist and woodland. I intend to take a poem to read and if anyone wants to talk then they should feel free.
I think funerals are important. They are a line between private grief and public mourning. A final rite of passage. It’s all work to be done. There’s also a time, just after the log drops, when people can’t do enough, can’t keep away. Then after the funeral, some people cross the road to avoid you because they’ve run out of things to say. I also think religions have a point too at the time of death, especially the Orthodox ones that do everything in a minor key. They can catch emotion on the wing and allow for its expression. The Kontakion from the Russian liturgy is lovely, ‘…and we shall all go down to the grave weeping…’
If I am honest, I’m angry with you for not being here to help with the huge job of mourning you. OK that’s ridiculous, but it was you that quit and left me with all this grieving to do.
It can’t be done quickly, I know that, and there’s no great rush. It will be done lovingly. It’s tiring work but you deserve a thorough job.
So fare well, but don’t leave, but if you have to, then go well and take the log with you because I shan’t forget.
