Liverpool opinions
In my life - Turn and face the strangers
By John
Williams
It seems fairly obvious that unless you are James Bond you only live once. Yet there is a very real sense that in any single lifetime we endure countless deaths and rebirths. You don't think so? Well, I should know because I have died at least once. How so you ask? It's like this.
I once had a friend who I had known for about four years before, at the age of 30, she died. In the intervening years we had established a relationship that in many ways appeared superficial, because we rarely engaged in any 'deep' conversations, but instead joked and smiled thoughout our friendship that mainly revolved around the trivia of existence. Yet there was a quality about our acquaintance that somehow transcended the need for heart to heart revelations that characterize so called meaningful relationships.
There were often times when a quizzical look or a raised eyebrow conveyed more than any amount of detailed explanations. She always knew where I was at and vice versa. I could read miles into her smiles. When she died I was more shocked than anything, because after all she was only 30 and had everything to live for. For a long time I could not understand the depth of the grief I experienced after her death. I simply attributed it to shock.
Over time however I realised that a great part of the grief stemmed from the fact that I could no longer indulge in those exchanges that were unique to our relationship; the winks, nudges and asides that only we two understood. In effect, a part of me had died too, and was beyond resurrection because nobody else in the world could replicate any part of that interaction. It was then that I started to mourn not only the death of Jenny, but also the death of one of the myriad aspects of myself. After that, although I still missed her enormously, the acute pain of loss subsided to a bearable numbness.
Jenny died over 25 years ago and in the intervening years I have lost other close friends and relatives, and each death has been accompanied by a little death in me. I have recently been thinking about how much more difficult it must be to lose a wife, a husband, a child or a lover to the clutches of death, or even just to another person.
All of those years together, some of it spent in creating a nonsense language known only to the individuals concerned, and again, some of it spent in establishing an intimate verbal shorthand wherein each person understood instantly whole chunks of meaning at the mere mention of a single word that encapsulated and illuminated the whole experience or argument under discussion.
The problem that arises on the loss of the other person, who had wielded the ping pong bat that deftly knocked back each lobbed serve, is that there is no one else who can return the serve in the same way, or worse, that the other person cannot see that the ball has even left your hand.
All of the terms of endearment, the gestures and the intimate knowledge that create bonds are matchless, and, although we daily create unrepeatable relationships with others, the aspects that characterise and define those relationships are never interchangeable and therein lies the sorrow of parting.
So to those who mourn the loss of someone dear to them I suggest that the healing will never really begin until they learn to mourn the permanent loss of that part of themselves that died when the object of their love either died or just simply exited the sphere of their immediate existence.
That said, it must be of some cheer to know that although we can never recreate lost relationships we can create and enjoy others, which, though infinitely different are equally unique.
The open heart admits many souls.