Peter Emmerson

My father died today in 1966 aged 44; he was too young!!  The dead don’t walk, the dead don’t talk – as far as I can see; they just disappear into memories that fade and fade as those who remember them die in their turn, having passed on ever fading memories and so on and so on and so on until we’re forgotten.  It’s those left behind who walk with and talk about the life that’s gone.  It seems easy to die, everybody does it; they’re here and in moments they’re gone; for good – from what I can tell.  It’s living that’s hard.  It’s living with the intangible bond that death brings, emptied of the habit of physical comfort that is hard.  It’s those who loved the dead who really suffer: not surprising then that so many find sanctuary in the supernatural, or some metaphysical dogma, or some fashionable, therapeutic, positive option: why suffer unnecessarily – good CBT.  Those for whom such strategies amount to self-deceit and for whom suicide has no merit, must learn to suffer, just suffer and suffer and suffer – living becomes bitter-sweet suffering, living with the damage that living brings, till dying comes.  When Dad died my mother was too young, I was too young, my brothers were too young, my sister was too young.  It’s easy to love when you’re young, love is for the young and yet, the young are too young for love.  Once you’ve found its joy you’re always too young for death.  So stay close to those you love, don’t waste one second of the joy their living brings and don’t allow them to die too easily, especially in someone else’s cause, for the suffering will never stop after their dying.  Those you love and the bitter-sweet suffering in memory of the dead are all there is; once you’ve learned to suffer – it seems to me.