THINK AND TALK...PLEASE

The topic of death can be a touchy one. Well, it certainly is for me. I don’t feel comfortable talking about death… which is tough really, because it is the only certainty we can expect in life.

I suppose I feel that if I don’t think about it or talk about it, it will never happen, neither to me nor my loved ones. It scares the hell out of me.

My first dealings with death came at about the age of 22. I was a young teacher in a school that was in mourning for a young life taken on the road. I remember the nuns issuing us with instructions on how to deal with grieving kids. I sucked at it. It was MY first experience at death and like the kids I too needed consoling and instructions on how to deal with my own grief.

A couple of years later my grandfather passed away. Although I had not lived in Malta for many a year I was sad beyond belief and more so when I could see and hear my father’s grief. I think that’s when the finality of death sank in. I had memories of reading books and looking at stamp albums with my nannu in his secret room. I realised that I would never do those things again. 

As the years passed I matured and toughened up. I had to. I worked in a country college and for a while accidents on the road were rife and funerals for lives lost too early, were plentiful. As part of my job at the time I had to organise a school mass for one student who had passed away. It was the first time I directly disobeyed an order from a boss. She had instructed me not to play music at the mass which would make kids cry. I ignored her and played what the Yr 12 cohort of the time wanted. She spent the whole time the song played trying to get my attention. I was too consumed with grief to care. Having taught the child for five years straight, I like many of her other teachers felt like I had lost a child of my own.

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, I initially never thought about death. For those of you who have followed my blog since the start you may recall me writing that I was angry. I was furious in fact. But, I never thought about death.

That hit me one day in a crowded shopping centre when I came face to face with a book celebrating the life of a woman who had passed away from breast cancer. It hit me straight in the face, between my eyes and into my brain.

This was what I had.

I ran out of the shop and sat in the car and cried and cried and cried. I was terrified.

At times like this I have been glad for my faith. During the months of my illness and that of my daughter, I have repeated the mantra – “In God’s hands”. At the worst times I have repeated it over and over, calming the panic rising in my system and giving me some peace in the knowledge that someone was in charge of this chaos.

This week death came to visit, taking with it my lovely niece way too early. Left behind are parents, a brother, a grandmother and a huge family all shattered with grief. She was still young and it was totally unexpected.

I didn’t think about it or talk about it and it still happened. And I’ve realised a few things…too late in this case but regardless.

     I need to think about it and live a life of no regrets. I need to do things I want to do and go places I want to go. I need to live as full a life as possible and not turn around one day and say “I wish I had….”

  I need to talk…not necessarily about dying but to the people I love. As a Facebook status said this week , “Leave nothing good unsaid”. How true. Keep in touch with people. Am I the only one guilty of being too busy?
 

It’s been a sad week and one that’s brought up a lot of feelings and memories.

Think and talk...please.

RIP my beautiful niece xxx