Bits

[smokingboot]

In an unprecedented example of medical competence, Dr Maim seems to have given me a prescription that works, thereby implying a correct diagnosis. This may not be news on anybody else's journal, but it's headline stuff on mine. Perhaps I should drop him a congratulatory card. The revelation of psoriasis still surprises me (my mother refuses to believe it and has cheerfully diagnosed me with shingles instead) but I suppose it explains my lifelong misery of winter jumpers. I thought we all got that.


Other stuff has happened, some of it trivial, some of it not.



My dear aunt phoned last night, having heard from my mother that I had contacted psoriasis/shingles/bubonic plague through stress. She suggested that she send me cash and larians and I join her and the family in Spain for Crimbo. To my surprise, larians likes the idea a lot, but of course, right now, we can't afford a cattery for the moogs. Also, let's be totally clear on this; if I am stressed, the last thing I do is hang out with my family. No, I will stay here and curl up on the sofa with the puss cats and sleep while shepherds watch their flocks by night. And aunt, always understanding, nodded and said, 'I'll just stick the money in your account instead.'

That woman is a jewel.




A friend's mother died very recently. I phoned her last night, and we will speak again this morning. The lady was in her 80s, extremely ill, and my friend's life has been an ever narrowing prison of love and duty, never out of the tiny council flat except to shop, almost no social life, coming home to...well, to great unhappiness for anyone else; to strength of mind and stalwart kindness in her. As an old school pagan, she has an earthy spirituality, a strong sense of integrity and real backbone. She told me she had seen her mother several times since her death; In the last years, her ma was old and looked old, hands clawed and unable to move without supports. But once upon her time, her mum's hands had been lovely, slim long fingers, very elegant. After her death, my friend saw her mother sitting in the front room staring down at her hands with delight. They were beautiful again.

I never know what to say; honesty seems appropriate when dealing with the dead, and I have a deep contempt for those who get gloriously maudlin about it; I was asked a question about this recently, and I gave a true but surface answer. This is an under-surface answer. It is also true but much less pretty.

I loathe those strange family situations where people have been snarling at each other all their lives and then suddenly remember the good points of the hated relative in death. 'Never speak ill of the dead,' they say.

[Be warned, I am about to use the word 'You' because it is less clumsy than 'One' but I don't mean you OK?] You can punch a person, cheat on them, ignore them, lie about them, hate them, but once they are dead you have your permission to get drunk and suddenly recall how much you cared - not enough to do anything constructive in life, just enough to cry a lot. Because you've lost so much, your demon dolly, your lifelong feud, your reason for screwing up. Oh but you loved them really. Poor you. Guess how much sympathy I feel. No, don't hate in life and love in death, that's so cheap, so easy. If you love, show it when you can and if you don't, try not to sully the garden of death with tears of self pity. Don't add hypocrisy to neglect. Be respectful, be sober, and go away.

My friend was the very essence of a loving daughter, with no touch of self indulgence in her approach to life or death, but still the lightning statement waited between us; 'You are free now.' And I felt I could say nothing, if I could not say that, so I let her do the talking. Strong and true as she is, she was the one who said, 'Well, now we are both free...' and she began to talk of the past, stories of her life with her mother. There will be more this morning.

Comments

[smokingboot.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It is frustratingly limited compared to Opal or even the three column thing, but it does feel very right.