In The Midst of Life- There Is Death~Short Article

Sometimes you can go through life and hardly give a thought to death, however this is not the case for myself, family & friends. It seems that cancer is rife at the moment and very sadly my friend & I have both lost close family members to this disease in the past week. Even when it’s expected death is a shock and definitely has a sting.

The problem with death is that the average person cannot feel particularly joyful even with regards to viewing it as a transition to a new and better life, a religious point of view. When someone has had a long illness or serious accident we can comfort ourselves by acknowledging that they are no longer suffering terrible pain or the humiliation of no longer being able to care for themselves... but it doesn’t matter what line of reasoning we take... grief is grief.

Death on your doorstep is hard but with the amount of emigration these days the burden of guilt can be significantly increased when we are in different countries for the following reasons:
• We might not have been able to get the time to visit the person when we/they would have liked during their final days and might have missed the last goodbye.
• The expense of travelling can be phenomenal and sometimes people are unable to attend their family funerals.
• Distance means that we just can’t do everything we would like throughout the years as a whole and can look back with regret.
• The different cultures involved can have deep implications with regard to finance and the allocation of responsibility.

Whenever and however our friends & family pass away we can never be prepared; we can simply do our best to reassure others and cope with our own feelings. Keeping busy initially is good for most people as is taking the time to say a proper goodbye, however if you are denied that opportunity you still need to move forwards and find ways to cope. Experience has taught me that time is a healer however we never ‘get over’ the loss of those we have cared for, instead we become acclimatized and with time can tune more into the good memories.

The best we can ever do is to make the most of life and develop an awareness of how we treat other people. Practicing taming our anger, learning to be patient, forgiving others and most of all, doing our best at all times put us in the position of knowing that we did all we could. However we are affected when those around us pass on we should try to remember that ultimately love endures and it is love that bridges the gap between this world and the next. We need to live in peace and depart in peace whilst life goes on.

Jaz McKenzie

If you would like to write and article for Its Braap~Its Life send to itsbraap@live.co.uk