On October 17th I always book the day off work. Years and years go by but it was some kind of resolution I made back at the beginning, a kind of apology in some respects but also an acknowledgement. It's a grave, there is no-one there - but even when it seems possibly a pointless gesture ALWAYS something happens there. This year I walked in to the cemetery through a different gate and came across a place where there were trees decorated with windchimes and streamers and there were balloons and toys by the graves - for babies and infants.
Then after putting flowers on my mum's grave I sat and watched in the very far distance two small birds playing together in the grey, billowing sky. It wasn't terriorial or competition over a beakful of food, there was a sense of delight, following, returning, lovingness. It was extraordinary, life-affirming. Some of the most important things cost nothing.
At the graveside I wasn't expecting any meaningful connection, what can there be left to think? Then I worked out something for the first time - how someone can have contemplated their dying and when it finally was upon them and when they faced their life ending there was a re-alignment to that fact without bitterness, even if it had all come so suddenly. When their last hours came they managed to open their heart to dying as the one last act of a life. When walking home I wondered if the mascara I'd still got on from the photoshoot yesterday had run down my face. Here is the watch she was wearing when she died. It finally stopped ticking a year or so later. I occasionally wear it as it gives the gift of helping to put everyday life into a different perspective.
Then after putting flowers on my mum's grave I sat and watched in the very far distance two small birds playing together in the grey, billowing sky. It wasn't terriorial or competition over a beakful of food, there was a sense of delight, following, returning, lovingness. It was extraordinary, life-affirming. Some of the most important things cost nothing.
At the graveside I wasn't expecting any meaningful connection, what can there be left to think? Then I worked out something for the first time - how someone can have contemplated their dying and when it finally was upon them and when they faced their life ending there was a re-alignment to that fact without bitterness, even if it had all come so suddenly. When their last hours came they managed to open their heart to dying as the one last act of a life. When walking home I wondered if the mascara I'd still got on from the photoshoot yesterday had run down my face. Here is the watch she was wearing when she died. It finally stopped ticking a year or so later. I occasionally wear it as it gives the gift of helping to put everyday life into a different perspective.
