Recollections of Blaisdon Hall
Solidarity in Sadness
Supporting each other in Loss
It is an inescapable realisation that death, bereavement and illness (often the harbinger of death), will have a major impact on our lives. We set out on life's path believing ourselves to be immortal. Then at some point, usually in fairly early childhood, we begin to know that our time on the earth is limited. We come to terms with this in various ways. I am approaching seventy now and think continually of death. I do not wish to be reminded of it, but the love care and concern for others as encountered in our Website, revives thoughts of death afresh. I comfort myself that Woody Allen was joking when he said: "I am not afraid of dying - I just don't want to be there when it happens."
We may turn for comfort to religion, or to humanistic concerns. We may decide on a positive outlook on life and death, or a nihilistic disregard for the possibilities that confront and worry us. But in one way or another, we manage for the most part to put death and illness out of our minds, until we personally suffer from their effects. When a loved one dies, a common comment is that we couldn't imagine life without them. Our minds rebel at death, but we have to somehow cope with it. My heart aches when I read of the latest life threatening illness of members of the Blaisdon Brotherhood and the accounts of recent bereavements.
No words that I can express will bring back their loved ones, and the sorrow they feel may never end. Nor would they want the sorrow to fully end I think, because that could only happen if they were to forget their loved one, and a crucial part of dealing with bereavement is knowing that you hold a place, for the person who has died, in your heart for always.
The pain of loss fades: but it can return in the same intensity at any time, even years later, if something - a photo, a birthday and an acquaintance - brings a sudden memory back from the past. One of the most difficult things for those who suffer a bereavement is the experience of being greatly supported in their grief during the early days (when the loss hasn't fully sunk in) only for sympathy to be withdrawn particularly if the bereaved is seen to be suffering for a long time. People become embarrassed by extended grieving, but there are those for whom prolonged grieving is the only option. Illness always tends to remind us of the frailty of our bodies, and the state of mortality in which we exist.
Any reminder of mortality tends to focus our minds on the lives we are living. When you consider the option that your life might end at any time, you tend to view your life in a different way. I believe that the more complete my life, in which my creative talents are fulfilled, the less I fear death. In truth, what I am afraid of is the incompleteness of my life. I just hope to be ready when death comes and that everything I set myself in terms of caring and sharing death's reality with others is achieved.
Tony Brady May 2009