Time Heals All Wounds

 

Most of my friends are experiencing the same thoughts and feelings both physically and mentally as I am and we share these in private conversations and through the internet with comic writings and jokes. While we take ourselves rather lightly, there is a certain seriousness that does not manifest itself outwardly and that gives us the privacy that sometimes is better to be exposed. When I look back and reflect on time spent with my parents and grandparents and so many of my older friends, I can’t ever remember discussing impending death and the fears and doubts that accompany it.  These are stored in the back of our minds. This is every individual’s private place. Most of us under 65 and in reasonably good health do not go there. As we get older the reality of death becomes more and more a focus point. When my mother was in her mid 80’s, she became very irritable and was not very receptive to my regular phone calls. We were heavily engrossed in running a 5-star Inn and a Flea market and I was not able to put my mind to her inner conflicts nor was I aware of them. I would not have understood her pressures as I was not yet old enough to experience them yet for myself.

The loss of friends and the funerals become a regular outing. As our world becomes more secular and non-religious and as we just do not want or need the closure in public, funerals are becoming less of a ritual.  A gathering for a “celebration of Life” is often the way people are dealing with death.  Whatever way you and your family are most comfortable with is satisfactory. I personally would like a family gathering with friends and some hymn singing and hopefully a few kind words if that would be possible, and a few words from the book that I always knew I should be more familiar with, the Bible. Joan and I have started back to church in Canada and find the Salvation Army service to be one we enjoy.  We get a lot from the service and enjoy the music and especially the Band.  It would be great to have a few rousing band pieces to send me off.  We have supported the Salvation Army for many years but never gave them a thought to make it our home church until my neighbour asked us out to a service where he was preaching the sermon. Ron and Alice have become lovely friends which goes to prove that we are never too old to make new friends. I mentioned this to an acquaintance and his response was “I have enough friends”. I can never have enough friends; The old ones keep dying off. Over the past two years I have seven male friends that have lost their spouse. My fear is not so much death but out living my friend and buddy of almost 70 years. Joan has the same fear, although I know she will fare better if I go first. My friends are all experiencing their sorrows in their own private ways. Some are able to handle the sorrow better than others. I know the feeling when we lost a very special friend, “Blue” a dear friend and a hearing ear dog for our boys. Some look at marriage in the same way, never again will I get another dog, losing them is far to traumatic. 

And yet life goes on, “Time heals all wounds”

 

Paul D. Scott.