Life and death again...

A few months ago I wrote a "short life but a happy one" about the death of my old friend MM.  Now I've heard of another sudden death from cancer, not of a close friend, but a man I only met once in adult life, although I knew him briefly as a teenager, since he was the then LO's best friend.

Like MM, R died suddenly of an undiagnosed cancer - or rather a cancer that had only been recently diagnosed.  He had had an extremely worthwhile life - after university he became a teacher for a few years, and then got into the aid world - he set up a thing called "The Living Earth Foundation" which works with local communities to solve their problems in ways which are appropriate to the community.  I found it all rather wonderful when he told me about it at the party where I met him again.  He was also a rather charismatic character - he seemed to have a very affectionate nature.   When I introduced myself to him at the party (in August 2010) rather shyly, as I wasn't sure he'd remember me, he immediately seized me, hugged me and kissed me as though he'd been waiting for me, I felt incredibly welcome.  We had a long chat - I met his sister and niece and got the impression of a happy family and a life well-lived.  We exchanged cards - and I hoped we'd be in touch again at some point, although I couldn't quite see how, but perhaps there might be some future professional synergy, or I might become a more accepted friend of the LO (dream on!).

Anyway, yesterday I heard of his death, he was probably 56. Why so short, when he could be still doing good?  Just the luck of the genetic lottery.  Then I went out to a school prize giving for my son Ned, his last official school event.  It was poignant, and a real rite of passage - Ned won two prizes (Politics and Government, and the Library prize for being a great reader), he was hanging around with his friends, and one just doesn't know now which of those friendships will really last.  But I was thinking of Rog and J and how they must have attended their last school prizegiving before going off into the big world, and how short a time seems to separate that from where we are now, and how one doesn't anticipate that one will one day be attending memorial services for the people one leaves school with.

I don't know what consoles one in these cases, but I found myself thinking of the Callimachos poem - about Heraclitus...

Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.

Someone told me of your death, Heraclitus, and it moved me to tears, when I remembered how often the sun set on our talking. And you, my Halicarnassian friend, lie somewhere, gone long long ago to dust; but they live, your Nightingales, on which Hades who siezes all shall not lay his hand.

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead;
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed;
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,
A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

(“Heraclitus”, by William Johnson Cory, 1823-92)

Of course the Victorian version is a bit soppy - suitable for its period, with the idealisation of male friendship, but it is redolent - I can always remember "tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky".  The "Nightingales" refers to Heraclitos's poems.  Mark comments that the poem is the literary equivalent of Lord Leighton's paintings - which is an excellent observation.  And Rog's "Nightingales" would be the foundation he set up.

You also begin to understand "ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee" better, because the death of one's contemporaries is a really potent reminder of one's own mortality. When my friend Sue died I was about 36 and she was 42 - and it was horrible, but it was an aberration, not a norm.  However, in the last year I know of three old friends (people I knew through James - Aymun, Dave and MM) who have died of cancers - and now Rog, and two others in the throes of it.    And even if the funeral bell is tolling for them, it tolls for me in the sense that a part of my life (or anyone's life) dies with them... a part of your hoped for future dies with them.  One wants to see people again - that song by James Taylor, Fire and Rain "but I always hoped that I'd see you baby, one more time again" - sums up this feeling.  I certainly hoped I'd see MM again and hear him laugh and see his mischievous looks.  It seems bizarre when one's lovers die, that something so real and vital that you shared is no longer shared.  I have vivid sexual memories of some people - it's not that I wish to repeat them at all, but the thought that all that remains is these and other memories is odd, knowing that the person who has the mirror memories to yours (if they remembered at all) has gone.  It reminds one that one day all you yourself will be in this world, is a few, one hopes vivid, memories.  

I hope that Roger and his family have some faith, and believe in a future life.  It's a little crazy to believe in a future life where we all "catch up with" each other in eternity, but it is a consolation.  I suspect any afterlife experience will be something more spiritual than endless conversations though....