To sir with love on Daffodil Day

He was thirty seven years old when he died.
Cancer claimed him quickly.
He had six months from diagnosis to death.
Lightning speed to live out the last days of your life.

He was my teacher at high school. He taught maths mainly.
He had a sense of the goofy about him. His enthusiasm was infectious.
An easy laugh and a keen sense of humour made him popular school wide.
Kids loved to learn from him and he instilled respect as readily as he taught calculus.

It was coaching volleyball that he really came into his own.
Throughout my high school days, he was coach and volleyball mentor.
He wasn't a gifted volleyball player himself. In fact his regular awkwardness afforded many a team giggle.
But my oh my he could coach. Motivate, teach, push, direct, inspire.

With school days over, we continued to play volleyball together.
The team was a mixed bunch of ex-students, teachers and housemates.
Success was varied but we had the time of our lives playing each week.
The game regularly followed up by a parma and pot at the local pub afterwards.

His cancer diagnosis was devastating to many.
Fit, strong, non-smoker. It made no sense.
There is no reason in the cancer and young person combination.
None.

I spent many hours with him in the last weeks of his life.
Thin, weak, barely able to eat a lemonade icypole.
His attitude remained defiant to the end.
One of the hardest things was watching his ageing parents shrink with the knowledge that they were going to outlive their beloved son.

There were hundreds at his funeral.
Tears and roses.
They played "To Sir with Love".
Students in school uniform formed a guard of honour.

The words that have stayed with me since that day are worth sharing here, penned by another of his mourning friends:

The pain is over.
A muscular frame.
One so fit, fluid and full  of sun.
Bent, angular, tormented.
Sparkling glances that warmed and wooed.
A wide eyed knowing spare.
Pleading yet defiant.
Incomprehensible courage.
I shall carry the message of our friendship into the future.
Our laughter shall ring in the ears of the next children.

Garry, beautiful Garry.
Know that you are loved and remembered nineteen years on.
Your battle inspired and touched so many.
Proudly donating to the Daffodil Day appeal in your honour today

The last meal* (reality)

It has been a few weeks.
Since she was lost.
The house is more often quiet now.

The buzz of endless visitors, all searching for the right words.
Like there are any that can be said. There are none.
Deliveries of flowers, pots of tea, the sound of quiet sobbing.
The silence has settled in now, both welcome and terrifying.

They have eaten, a little, since that day.
Food has flowed like a river to their door.
From the kitchens of those who love them, those who loved her.
Desperate to offer some tiny morsel of comfort. There is none.

It's quiet now.
Casserole dishes scrubbed clean and returned.
It's the human way, it seems.
The busyness of death and in the after, the quiet, the solitude.

She was a cook. Oh my she was a cook.
Their lives full of the delights she cooked for them.
Her way of nurturing, of loving, of being.

He opens the freezer.
Already knowing what's inside.
The plastic container, frosted over.
It's like it stares back at him, unblinking.

The pain of this, for him, is almost unbearable.
He heats the food and it comes to life.
Spice and love all mixed together.
It's the last one. The last meal she will ever cook for him.
Forever.

The sound of quiet sobbing.

*This post is inspired and imagined by recent events in the life of someone I know well. Remembering you always D.

Grateful for life, just life

This post was going to be about being grateful for some time in the last couple of days. Time to tick some things off the list, pay some bills, tidy the study, clean out the pantry, play with the kids, bake cinnamon buns. Lovely domesticity.

This post was going to be about that.

And then an hour ago I received a phone call to tell me of the sudden death of the wife of a very dear work colleague. Sudden. Random. Indiscriminate. Without warning. Dead. Just like that.

I knew her too. For years.

Devastating.

So tonight I am grateful for life, just life. Everything and nothing. Living and loving. And in a few minutes I will creep into the boys' bedrooms and kiss them with a poignancy and a gratitude made all the more powerful by being reminded how fleeting it all can be, how randomly it can be over.

Hug the ones you love. Tell them. Make it count. Be grateful. Always.


Linking with Maxabella tonight xx

Image via We Heart It

Not six feet under

About once a month at our house, we get a phone call asking the Captain or me to participate in a market research study over the phone. I quite like doing the surveys so I often say yes if it won't be too disruptive to the smooth running chaos of the day. The surveys are on all manner of topics, everything from insurance to politics to media to the quality of particular services. I guess somewhere in my psyche I believe in doing these surveys because while I can whine about the "market" not providing the services and products of high quality that are needed, how will the market know what to provide unless I tell them?

On Saturday afternoon I answered the phone and agreed to do a survey being conducted by the Trust who manages many of the cemeteries and memorial parks in the city where I live.

It was fascinating and has kept me thinking way after the survey ended.

For fifteen minutes a lovely gentleman and I chatted about death and funerals and how I would want myself to be "memorialised" after my death. We talked about burials and cremations. We talked about the costs of these services. We talked about pre-planned funerals. We talked about whether or not I thought it was appropriate that memorial parks and their facilities have multiple community usage for things like festivals, conferences or bereavement education. I expressed the opinion that I don't believe that as a society we "do grief" very well and that I think there is a long way to go to educate the broader populus in how to best support those who are grieving.

The thing that surprised me a little about the survey was how easily and concisely the answers came out of my mouth. Sure, they are things I have thought about and the Captain and I have had bits and pieces of conversation about them but here I was, with a stranger, being completely clear about what I wanted my "after" to look like.
Burial? - no.
Cremation? - yes.
Pre-planned funeral? - great idea but have never got around to doing it
Funeral pre-planned online? - sure.
Ashes in a garden or crypt in the cemetery? - no.
Ashes scattered in a place of natural beauty?  - Yes. Yes. Yes.

It felt good not to be conflicted about any of this. It just felt good to know.

Do you do market research stuff? Do you think about questions like these? Do you know the answers?

Postscript: As I finished off this post this morning, a program came on the radio here to discuss death and dying. An End of Life Forum they called it. It's worth a listen if you are so inclined. xx

Image via http://weheartit.com/