
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Hats

Thursday, January 20, 2011
Remembering the Dead

A very long time ago someone told me that one of the hard things about losing someone close to you is the period
After
After the shock, After the wanting to dissolve into a pool of salt water, After the numbness. After support network of friends and relatives have started drifting off and getting on with their own lives. For you it is still raw and real and at times unbearable. But your support network? They have slowly started picking up the pieces and are beginning to live their lives again.
And so I promised myself that I would always remember. That I would remember the dates, and I would always offer my support and love, if not every day then at least on those anniversaries. And so it has been that I have always done this.
When my friend Johnny was killed by an elephant I had my first proper taste of the truth of this. And always on the anniversary of his death in July and on his birthday (just two days before mine, on the 15th January) I would write to his mother and his sister to say I was thinking about them.
And now I have moved to Tanzania and once more I live close to Johnny's mother and sister. And I see, on his birthday and the anniversary of his death how perhaps my 'thoughtful' reminders are just too much.
So what do you think? What is remembered lives, as Reya says? Or is it just picking at the scab of wounds that should be left to heal?