My mother
died 6 weeks ago. She died at the age of 83 after a long time spent in the
twilight that is Alzheimer’s. She had a gentle and expected death.
Something
has changed within me. My mortality, the sense of the inherent fragility of
life has been shoved rudely and abruptly into my attention and I have changed
as a result. My parents are dead. The “buffer zone” of old people is gone. My
generation within the group I once called family has already begun to die. My
much loved brother Mark was the first to die a little over 2 years ago.
Suddenly
death is very real and very personal. I have a choice. I can grieve and cry out
as I saw my sister do over Mum’s body shortly after she died. Or I can begin
that mad defiance, that declaration of war on my mortality. I saw little point
and no wisdom in crying out over a death that was both expected and long
accomplished. The personality I had known, hated and loved that was my mother
left about 3 years ago. On February 18 her body finally gave up and followed
her personality. Why cry then and not 3 years ago when what was Mum slipped
away? Surely in any meaningful way my mother died when she lost the ability to
speak, to reason and to engage the world around her. What I do see great point
and even greater wisdom in is in the decision to achieve what I can because of
death not in spite of it. Rather than live in fear of death we can live with
death as our greatest friend and motivator.
So why am I
motivated to make my declaration of war now and not when Mum functionally died?
The answer is simple: Standing beside the grave that holds your mother, or the
parent you were closest to is one of the most sobering experiences you can
have. I can now take decisive steps to stop fart arsing and fucking around like
I have an infinite supply of tomorrow’s, which I don’t, and get my health into
the shape that has been my stated intention for the last 9 years. I can wear
the tiredness that comes with the desire to shed the last kg and look the way I
want to. I can see now that the idea that we have any tomorrow’s is the
delusion that robs us of achievement. The delusion of tomorrow enables us to
make excuses and cop outs. The delusion of having a tomorrow in which we will
finally accomplish something is what in effect robs us of those tomorrows. We
have NOW. We have no tomorrow.
Suddenly I
want my “come fuck me body” BAD!!! I want this body NOW. I want it bad enough
to lose the excuses and to do the work I have needed to do. There is the
tradition of marking 100 days since someone’s death. The 100 days since my Mum’s
death will come on June 3. My response to this is to reach my physical goals by
that date.
Dylan Thomas
wrote a lament to his dying father. For me it has always been a declaration of
war.
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
So I declare my war. From
now on my death is my constant companion. Death also hectors me, berates me and
bullies me. In my declaration of war death will give me no rest until I fork
the lightning that Thomas speaks of. I will have no rest until I have arced,
sparked and danced across the sky.
