I’m not a religious person, but with Easter almost upon us, the thought of death – and what lies beyond – comes acutely to mind.
The younger you are, the fewer people you’re likely to have lost to the Grey Reaper, so this might not mean as much to you. Unless you’re one of the unfortunate few who’s been struck by tragedy early in life – losing a parent, a sibling, a romantic partner. Like my mother did.
But let’s get back to thoughts of the Big Beyond, or the After-Life, whatever you want to call it.
The spectre of death in all its finite awfulness hit me hardest when my mother died twelve years ago. I’d lost my father even longer ago, but I was never as close to him; whereas with my mother, it was like losing a limb – a part of me being amputated. An awareness that I’m an orphan now. An almost maniacal desire to see her again, hear her voice again, feel her touch, despite our relationship having been extremely problematic. Any of you who’ve read my novel, Infinite Stranger, will know what I mean.
But no matter how problematic, no matter how many times over the years I’d longed to be free of her, when she died, I still missed her desperately. She was my mother, after all. And remember: the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. (William Ross Wallace.)
Not long after her death, I went to Ampleforth Abbey (named Greystones in my novel) to see the monk I’d once been in love with, hoping this man of God could help me come to terms with my mother’s passing . I urgently need to hear an uplifting response to the question burning on my lips:
‘Will I see her again?’
He looked at me with those blue eyes – older eyes now, tired, no longer sparkling, as they had been when I first met him in my youth – and said, ‘Yes, you’ll see her again, Wendy. Whatever ‘seeing’ means.
Whatever seeing means. What a wise phrase.
Some of you might think it a cop-out, but for me, it was just what I needed to hear, at that time. I should imagine the same would apply to grieving people all over the world. Knowing that they will ‘see’ their loved ones again, no matter what ‘seeing’ exactly means. What comfort. What hope.
My thoughts travel back in time to my mother’s youth, when she lost her fiancé to a terrorist’s bullet in Cyprus in the late 1950s. How must she have felt when she received that life-changing telegram from the Colonial Office in Nicosia, informing her that the man she loved was dead? Twenty-six, in love, the world her oyster – and suddenly, nothing. I should imagine these words from W H Auden’s poem, Funeral Blues, would have suited her mood precisely:
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
And when she’d fully digested the words from the telegram, I imagine she might have have felt like Natasha Rostova in War and Peace, after the death of her beloved Prince Andrei. Where is he now? What is he now?
Strong believers will say, ‘They’re with God now. They’re happy. They’re waiting for you to join them one day.’ But for many of us, that isn’t good enough. It’s too prescriptive. How can anyone know for sure what lies in The Great Beyond? Neither the Pope himself, nor the Dalai Lama, can answer that question.
Maybe there’s nothing. No heaven, no resurrection, no reincarnation, no after-life. Nada.
Or maybe there is. How can we know, when no one has been back from there? Einstein himself wouldn’t be able to work out such an equation.
Life + Death = ?
That’s why I loved hearing my monk say, ‘whatever ‘seeing’ means.’ It’s not prescriptive, it’s not overtly religious, but it gives us a bright jewel of hope at a time when our world has gone dark.
You’d have to be a stalwart atheist not to believe even that. Of course, such a species does exist. But I’d like to think that they’re in the minority. I’d like to think that when we lose someone we love, there’ll be some sort of reconnection, however shapeless and indeterminate and unproven it might be.
Wendy Skorupski 