footpad, posts by tag: death - LiveJournal (original) (raw)

Death	[Sep. 21st, 2012\|04:47 am]Footpad
[Tags\|death, more death, people keep fucking dying] [Current Mood	slapped]I wake up in the small hours, ill and exhausted, and I find out about pebblepup. I didn't know. Pebble, you bright genius, you wit, you spark. You were always going to die, and before the rest of us, but you spent so long trouncing the odds and poking Fate in the eye that I never imagined, never found it conceivable, that you'd ever get round to dying soon.Then as I'm going looking for comfort from mikosquirrel (who, thank fuck, is very much alive), I find that margaras died in a car crash nearly two weeks ago. Two weeks, and I didn't know.Two at once. Two at fucking once.
Link

[Sep. 21st, 2012|04:47 am]Footpad

[Tags**|death, more death, people keep fucking dying] [Current Mood**

slapped]I wake up in the small hours, ill and exhausted, and I find out about

pebblepup. I didn't know. Pebble, you bright genius, you wit, you spark. You were always going to die, and before the rest of us, but you spent so long trouncing the odds and poking Fate in the eye that I never imagined, never found it conceivable, that you'd ever get round to dying soon.Then as I'm going looking for comfort from

mikosquirrel (who, thank fuck, is very much alive), I find that

margaras died in a car crash nearly two weeks ago. Two weeks, and I didn't know.Two at once. Two at fucking once.

Link

Et perducant te	[Aug. 3rd, 2012\|01:13 am]Footpad
[Tags\|death, family, granny] [Current Mood	blessed; grateful; loved] [Current Music	Gabriel Fauré, _In Paradisum_]My granny died in the early evening. My aunt, who was with her, says that her death was utterly peaceful.I feel... not sad at all. Quite the opposite: I feel a kind of incredulous, tremulous joy at the realisation of how very lucky it was that she and I got to see each other when we did. We got to talk while she could still talk. We got to look into each others' eyes while she was still fully aware. We got to say our farewells, each to the other. We got to say, "I love you," and for that I am intensely, blessedly thankful.I kinda wish I'd had time to send her a picture of me and Mischa, like she asked me to when we saw each other a week ago. But if that's the sharpest regret I bear, then that's as good as no regrets at all.I am grateful and glad that she was my granny, and I am privileged to have been her grandson. There will be grief to come, as part of the natural progress of mourning and remembrance, but for now I feel only a calm and wistful happiness.
Link	13 comments\|Leave a comment

The whispered farewell on the cusp of night	[Aug. 2nd, 2012\|02:06 am]Footpad
[Tags\|death, granny] [Current Mood	searing, poignant, exalted, riven]On Friday I said goodbye to my grandmother for what may well be the last time.Granny's been ill for a long time. There's nothing specifically and drastically wrong with her; she's just inexpressibly worn down by the ravages of age and a Pyrrhic victory over cancer. She's been bedridden for the past three years, growing increasingly frail and weak, and I've grown used to finding her looking washed-out and thin and sometimes hazy with the painkillers.This time, the moment I saw her, I knew that things were different. She was barely moving, barely able to speak, a tiny shrivelled husk of a woman, her face tortoise-like, the skin of her arms flaccid and veiny around the stick-like outline of her bones. And her eyes had the gentle, relentless clarity of those who are cheek-to-cheek with death, and who know that there is no more time for the distractions and bullshit that fill most of the days of our lives.She made a vague hand gesture in my direction, and I took her hand and held it to my cheek, just watching her, and we looked into each other's eyes for a while, her gaze sometimes wandering away to the ceiling as she briefly retreated into some inner world of her own. But presently she rallied, and we talked quietly of small things, and then she said,"We may not see each other again."And there it was, the thing we both already knew: that death is with her, like a dark serene wolf lying at the foot of her bed, waiting in patience for the time that shall be ordained.I nodded.The conversation was very slow, with long pauses.She said, "When you leave, I shall cry."A little later, I said, "When I leave, you'll cry, but I— I'm crying now." And this with a broken grin and a choke of tears.She said gently, "I have had a good life."She said, "We will be reunited," in the life to come. I don't know if she believes that or if she was just offering me comfort. I just said, with heartfelt feeling, "Good."She said, "I've been blessed with the most wonderful grandchildren."Time passed.I said, very gently, but with all the emphasis I knew how to express: "Thank you. For everything." For everything. For gentleness; for days and toys and hugs and comfort and care. For decades of unfailing love.We both said, "I love you." It doesn't matter in which order.We looked at each other as I left the room, and her eyes were very clear.I left the house, and burst into tears and cried in public for the first time I can remember since I was a child. There was no shame in it.Granny has blue eyes. I'd never noticed.
Link	10 comments\|Leave a comment

The whispered farewell on the cusp of night

[Aug. 2nd, 2012|02:06 am]Footpad

[Tags**|death, granny] [Current Mood**

searing, poignant, exalted, riven]On Friday I said goodbye to my grandmother for what may well be the last time.Granny's been ill for a long time. There's nothing specifically and drastically wrong with her; she's just inexpressibly worn down by the ravages of age and a Pyrrhic victory over cancer. She's been bedridden for the past three years, growing increasingly frail and weak, and I've grown used to finding her looking washed-out and thin and sometimes hazy with the painkillers.This time, the moment I saw her, I knew that things were different. She was barely moving, barely able to speak, a tiny shrivelled husk of a woman, her face tortoise-like, the skin of her arms flaccid and veiny around the stick-like outline of her bones. And her eyes had the gentle, relentless clarity of those who are cheek-to-cheek with death, and who know that there is no more time for the distractions and bullshit that fill most of the days of our lives.She made a vague hand gesture in my direction, and I took her hand and held it to my cheek, just watching her, and we looked into each other's eyes for a while, her gaze sometimes wandering away to the ceiling as she briefly retreated into some inner world of her own. But presently she rallied, and we talked quietly of small things, and then she said,"We may not see each other again."And there it was, the thing we both already knew: that death is with her, like a dark serene wolf lying at the foot of her bed, waiting in patience for the time that shall be ordained.I nodded.The conversation was very slow, with long pauses.She said, "When you leave, I shall cry."A little later, I said, "When I leave, you'll cry, but I— I'm crying now." And this with a broken grin and a choke of tears.She said gently, "I have had a good life."She said, "We will be reunited," in the life to come. I don't know if she believes that or if she was just offering me comfort. I just said, with heartfelt feeling, "Good."She said, "I've been blessed with the most wonderful grandchildren."Time passed.I said, very gently, but with all the emphasis I knew how to express: "Thank you. For everything." For everything. For gentleness; for days and toys and hugs and comfort and care. For decades of unfailing love.We both said, "I love you." It doesn't matter in which order.We looked at each other as I left the room, and her eyes were very clear.I left the house, and burst into tears and cried in public for the first time I can remember since I was a child. There was no shame in it.Granny has blue eyes. I'd never noticed.

Link

10 comments|Leave a comment

A word of warning	[Sep. 3rd, 2011\|08:09 pm]Footpad
[Tags\|death, mischa, pet hates, rants] [Current Mood	malevolent]One day Mischa will die, and probably before me. I can encompass this fact, although I try not to think about it. But just a word of warning: if, on that day, any simpering ( noun Collapse ) comes up to me and starts squealing some asinine ( adjective Collapse ) ( noun Collapse ) about "The Rainbow Bridge", I swear I'm going to ( verb Collapse ) them straight in the ( adjective Collapse ) face.Just so you know.
Link	18 comments\|Leave a comment

A word of warning

[Sep. 3rd, 2011|08:09 pm]Footpad

[Tags**|death, mischa, pet hates, rants] [Current Mood**

malevolent]One day Mischa will die, and probably before me. I can encompass this fact, although I try not to think about it. But just a word of warning: if, on that day, any simpering ( noun Collapse ) comes up to me and starts squealing some asinine ( adjective Collapse ) ( noun Collapse ) about "The Rainbow Bridge", I swear I'm going to ( verb Collapse ) them straight in the ( adjective Collapse ) face.Just so you know.

Link

18 comments|Leave a comment

Frank died this morning.	[Jan. 13th, 2009\|12:36 am]Footpad
[Tags\|death, rumination] [Current Mood	pensive]There's a text message on my phone. Dearest you, Frank died this morning. Love you v. much as ever, Mum._Frank died this morning._I'm not bereaved. I haven't seen Frank for over a decade, and as far as I know he's been dying by inches for most of that time anyway. But still it makes you stop and think. I remember him as an emaciated and ascetic man, unhealthily sallow of skin, with the nervy intensity of a bird of prey. My mother has told stories about him on occasion, tales of paranoia and ludicrous intrigue which suddenly turned out to be unnervingly plausible when Peter Wright published Spycatcher. Frank once stored various possessions at our family home, including a brutally-made shotgun with a large supply of heavy-gauge cartridges, suitable only for large-bodied targets. He was, I gather, a peculiar kind of guy.And he died this morning. A peculiar kind of guy, a lifetime of peculiar experience—the sort of person I'm glad our world includes. Now gone. All that thought, all that consciousness, all that memory, dissolved in the wind of time like the brief smoke of an expiring candle. He lives on only in the hearts and minds of those who knew him, which barely includes me.We are creatures of memory. We become ourselves through what we have lived; and what we have lived is the sum of a million present moments. In the end we are only as alive as we are aware, and awareness always beckons to us. Life is not a thing to seek; it surrounds and pervades us. Experience comes of itself. Breathe, my friends, wait and watch. Trust me. Try to see.Frank Skelton, 2009 †.
Link	3 comments\|Leave a comment

Frank died this morning.

[Jan. 13th, 2009|12:36 am]Footpad

[Tags**|death, rumination] [Current Mood**

pensive]There's a text message on my phone. Dearest you, Frank died this morning. Love you v. much as ever, Mum._Frank died this morning._I'm not bereaved. I haven't seen Frank for over a decade, and as far as I know he's been dying by inches for most of that time anyway. But still it makes you stop and think. I remember him as an emaciated and ascetic man, unhealthily sallow of skin, with the nervy intensity of a bird of prey. My mother has told stories about him on occasion, tales of paranoia and ludicrous intrigue which suddenly turned out to be unnervingly plausible when Peter Wright published Spycatcher. Frank once stored various possessions at our family home, including a brutally-made shotgun with a large supply of heavy-gauge cartridges, suitable only for large-bodied targets. He was, I gather, a peculiar kind of guy.And he died this morning. A peculiar kind of guy, a lifetime of peculiar experience—the sort of person I'm glad our world includes. Now gone. All that thought, all that consciousness, all that memory, dissolved in the wind of time like the brief smoke of an expiring candle. He lives on only in the hearts and minds of those who knew him, which barely includes me.We are creatures of memory. We become ourselves through what we have lived; and what we have lived is the sum of a million present moments. In the end we are only as alive as we are aware, and awareness always beckons to us. Life is not a thing to seek; it surrounds and pervades us. Experience comes of itself. Breathe, my friends, wait and watch. Trust me. Try to see.Frank Skelton, 2009 †.

Link

3 comments|Leave a comment

Intimations of muttality	[Aug. 6th, 2008\|07:57 pm]Footpad
[Tags\|beauty, death, joy, life, sadness] [Current Mood	exquisitely bittersweet]Taking a break from the work of the day, listening to fin de décennie rock, Far away, away,Fading distant lightsLeaving us all behind,Lost in a changing worldAnd you know,That these are the days of our lives;Remember. lying on my floor, stroking Mischa. He rolls onto his back, stretching out luxuriously and pressing his hind paw up against my chest while I run my fingers over and through his thick soft fur, shoulder to flank, shoulder to flank, shoulder to flank. He's so sweet and I do love him. Prompted by the music, I realise that he'll die one day, probably (hopefully) before I do, and for a while there will be nothing for me but sadness.Sorrow will be my all, but on the scope of things my sorrow will be even less significant than the days of my life. We are all pathetically finite. Like mayflies in pine-resin as it hardens to amber, we are constrained to our lifespans on the face of this minute planet, each of us one creature among billions, on one planet among trillions, while the cosmos extends as though to eternity across the unfathomable deeps of space and time. This is the human condition: the ephemeral creature, forever yearning towards the Infinite. Don't you just wish, once in a while, that you could live forever, if only to see the great march of the galaxies, to watch the stars themselves grow old?Oh well! Not gonna happen. You can dream of the infinite but, like Mischa himself, sometimes you just have to live in the moment. Right here, right now, I love my dog.
Link	7 comments\|Leave a comment

Intimations of muttality

[Aug. 6th, 2008|07:57 pm]Footpad

[Tags**|beauty, death, joy, life, sadness] [Current Mood**

exquisitely bittersweet]Taking a break from the work of the day, listening to fin de décennie rock, Far away, away,Fading distant lightsLeaving us all behind,Lost in a changing worldAnd you know,That these are the days of our lives;Remember. lying on my floor, stroking Mischa. He rolls onto his back, stretching out luxuriously and pressing his hind paw up against my chest while I run my fingers over and through his thick soft fur, shoulder to flank, shoulder to flank, shoulder to flank. He's so sweet and I do love him. Prompted by the music, I realise that he'll die one day, probably (hopefully) before I do, and for a while there will be nothing for me but sadness.Sorrow will be my all, but on the scope of things my sorrow will be even less significant than the days of my life. We are all pathetically finite. Like mayflies in pine-resin as it hardens to amber, we are constrained to our lifespans on the face of this minute planet, each of us one creature among billions, on one planet among trillions, while the cosmos extends as though to eternity across the unfathomable deeps of space and time. This is the human condition: the ephemeral creature, forever yearning towards the Infinite. Don't you just wish, once in a while, that you could live forever, if only to see the great march of the galaxies, to watch the stars themselves grow old?Oh well! Not gonna happen. You can dream of the infinite but, like Mischa himself, sometimes you just have to live in the moment. Right here, right now, I love my dog.

Link

7 comments|Leave a comment