Ep 4 - Death: what if we talked?

Voice: ‘We’re about to serve dinner? Can you call your grandmother back tomorrow?’

‘What if it’s just for a few minutes – I really need her’

Voice: ‘3 minutes. That’s it’

Grandma: ‘Yes?’

‘What if, grandma, I can’t ever see you again, and, I know we’re not meant to speak about it, but… 

What if we’re not meant to die in silence, on our own? 

Grandma: ‘Who is this?’

What if, no it’s video grandma, all I can see is your ear now.

What if I’m afraid of death – well maybe not death – I’m afraid of dying?

Grandma: ‘It’s my grandson!’

What if when Gib died, it shook me so much because I realised there is no such thing as forever?

Grandma: ‘He still loves you darling’

What… What if we all clothe ourselves in veils of permanence – houses, careers, relationships – that we pretend will last forever? 

What if that’s why we suffer in life and death, grandma, because we resist change – and when a change like death happens, it takes us by surprise, because it doesn’t fit with our happy-ever-after stories?

What if  it’s time to stop pretending now Death is here?

Grandma: ‘Who’s here? Have I got a visitor?! Oh, look at the beautiful sky. Look at the colour!’

What if we love a sunset because it ends, and it’s the momentariness that infuses it with beauty? What if life is beautiful because it ends?

Grandma: Is it really the end?

What if, like as the sun moves beyond the horizon, life continues to shine, even though we don’t see it? 

What if the baby in the womb does not believe in life after birth? What if we sing to her, ‘while you have no experience of this type of change, that’s all it is, a change. You will live on, in some way, shape or form?’

What if, when it’s our time, like  griefwalker Stephen Jenkinson says, it’s our job to lay a table of beauty for Death, and for all those we love? 

Voice: Dinner is ready!

Grandma: ‘It’s my turn to lay the table’

What if how we live and how we die lays a table that will be visited again and again in our loved one’s hearts? 

Grandma: ‘Time to say goodbye’

What if it’s never too soon and never too late to say goodbye, grandma, and that by talking about death it takes away the fear, and helps us live more, love more, and be more today?