When my children were small, walks and parks were needed to satisfy their fascination with creatures and all things green and growing. Once, in our tiny backyard they came upon a dead bird lying on its back, feet in the air, beak open. Crouched close, my four-year-old asked, “When the bird dies, is it all by itself?”
Children’s unfiltered honesty often goes to the heart of things adults would rather avoid. My answer to my boy’s question was both yes and no. Dying is something we have to do alone. What happens after death is a mystery not answered by visions of streets paved with gold. The dead can be alive to us in memory, there can be presence in absence. In my opinion, this has everything to do with how a person has lived, how their energy and face-to-the-world have met life.
When the bird dies, is it all by itself?Credit:Jason South
When my dad died my son was all of six years old. He paid a lot of attention and came with me to the funeral parlour before the funeral. I wanted to be able to answer his questions without the press of people. My brother was in Iceland facing the impossibility of a timely return. The six-year-old drew a picture of the trolley that would hold his grandpa’s coffin. He sent it with a message for his uncle, “Dear Bryce, Pere is dead, but he’s still in life.”
Towards the end of her long life, my mother had moments of luminosity amidst the confusions of Alzheimer’s. One day, close on the heels of conspiracy theories about the hospital she was in, she called me to her bedside. She held out her hand for me to hold and patted my arm. “Darling I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you about the time when I can no longer be with you in the way that I am now.” My skin tingled – such generous care, even into the future beyond her own death.
I’ve often rested in these ungilded truths. He’s gone but he’s still in life; she is with us, but not in the way she once was. My children helped me– sometimes hilariously. My daughter was three when her grandpa died. She announced, “I like Nan better now that Pere is dead.” A practical choice that caused her Nan to chuckle. My mother had a long widowhood and as an adult my daughter said: “She brought Pere into the room, she mentioned him almost every day.”
Often it is the people at the edges of experience who carry surprising knowing. They awaken us to gifts already given.
Julie Perrin is a Melbourne writer
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