The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Thanks poet-e and Sharon.
I can see why you might have seen Titanic
And cliché...I have to hit rock bottom soon with all these death poems Sharon
And thank you all for your concern regarding my father. He's not well...but he's not on his way out just yet.
He'll be 90 this year, all his (7) siblings are still alive...and he isn't the eldest!

Hi Colm,
You continue your exploration of your subject---here quite literally. Taken as part of the whole of your writings this is one more in your shifting attitudes toward death. I relate somewhat to this one as an arrival at some kind of understanding of the event as a clearing of the vision of death. There is an implied "curiosity" about the destination each of us is assigned that could almost be interpreted as a sense of adventure. Who knows Colm? Niether you nor I
 

Hi Linda, (great to have you back )
Yes, I've been through 'the process' with my late father-in-law (Austin), and I'm gaining more experience now with my father's protracted journey; much of this is witnessing the tragic lives of other patients. The neglect they experience because the health system is underfunded, nurses struggling to provide decent care, families not bothering to visit because they're selfish people...or because the patients themselves were bad people. 'All human life is here'...from the very good to the very bad...and everything in between.
I sometimes feel like a voyeur, or maybe a miner, watching/listening to the dramas going on around me when I visit him. It's like a soap opera...the pain, humour, tragedy, frustration, despair, indignity and occasionally hope fascinate me; and remind me of a line in a poem I wrote about Austin's funeral. We were driving to his cremation in a black undertakers' limo and the thought struck me that I was alive, I wasn't in 'the box'...that this time 'I was only a passenger'
I do see the final destination as an adventure, I'm very curious about it. But I'm becoming more and more aware that many people don't/can't look at it that way...they've had enough, don't really care what comes next.
They just want out!

Yes, Colm, an adventure, a journey, a ride filled with curiosity.  I know some folk who do feel this way about approaching deaths door, but sadly I know many folk who are petrified by the prospect and totally deny it.  And also those who just want out.

Many avoid visiting the dying because the death process and its reality simply freaks them out.  So unfortunate as it denies the ticketed traveler his/her humanity, plus chokes off the AWOL visitors to some of life's realities and their humanity as well. 

I suspect that at the end many do get to the point of just wanting out.  My hope is that even if I'm exhausted with hanging on I will still keenly keep observing the process and observe what's next.

This was a great exploration... thanks Colm.

Aj 

Thank you Aj.
I might have put this up before. It's a speech that, I think, gives a reason why some elderly people fear death. I'll let this wonderful old man explain.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0FIFsgxJV4
Regards

Colm - I have no words................. Thanks for sharing.

Aj