14 January 2010

I have recently started reading 'Tuesdays with Morrie'. Morrie's conversations about death and dying brought back to me a conversation I had had with my mother about death, maybe a couple of months before she died. We had the conversation while she was in hospital with a bad bout of infected diverticulitis. She told me...
"When one is very young, death seems so far away and a child is so very scared of death. When one is a youth, a person feels invincible and feels death will never come to her/him. Later, when you move into the real business of living, especially as a family person, you are so busy with the nitty-gritty of living, you don't give death more than a passing thought and there is rarely any time to even feel scared about it. But there comes a time when you are older (she was 89 then), when one welcomes the idea of death and it is no longer something to be scared about, but something inevitable, which is accepted as such and even to look forward to." It really made me see where she was at that moment and certainly gave me a great deal of strength.
I have already reached the age where I no longer fear death.

9 comments:

  1. I don't want to leave my children just yet, but I can't wait to see my mother again. I miss her so much.

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  2. I liked the book.

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  3. Oy why are you talking about death ?

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  4. EL, reading the book made me think again about my attitude to death and the way today death is thought of as something almost unnatural.

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  5. I wasn't able to leave my comment over at your other blog ... loved the effect of the solar eclipse on your leaves! And you have a puppy, girl or boy and is is a labrador? Just seen a photo of a laby pup, male, black over at swallowtail's blog*!*

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  6. Bimbimbie, don't know why you couldn't comment on the nature blog. The pup is female--I only ever keep females, much more manageable.

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  7. i've heard of the book and would like to read it.death is the only sure thing about life.so it need not be accorded any greta importance i feel.

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  8. HHG, I so agree with you.

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  9. I have the book (and the video); it's been sitting on my shelf waiting for me to read for several years... funnily enough my mother gave it to me:(

    I don't suppose I am so much afraid of death... but any judgement that might come after:)) Saying that, I am not ready to go yet...I feel I have more to do and to contribute. But I know what you mean in those words your mother said..there is a time when death has no fear.

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