Days

My next door neighbour’s just had another birthday. She’s 102. I worked out she was actually alive before the end of the first World War. That’s a bit mind-boggling.


And she’s still going. I wouldn’t say going strong: she’s frailer than when we moved here, and we don’t see much of her these days. We hear her, a bit.

When her daughter or the carer visits, we hear the new doorbell that plays about 100 different electronic tunes. And we hear her coughing at night. The walls are thin. Sometimes I wonder how we will cope when there are other people living there, who have children and have sex and play loud music. (Sometimes I wonder if she hears us: we don’t have children but… But she is quite deaf now.)

Sometimes I wonder why my neighbour is still alive when my mother is not. My neighbour is a generation older. It doesn’t seem fair.

Last year I went to two funerals: my mother’s and my father in law’s. This year, it’s going to be three. So far. Is this what happens the older you get?

In the summer, my mum’s best friend died. And in the last few weeks, two people from my church have died: one unexpectedly and suddenly, one suddenly ill and then expectedly. (I bought a “sorry you’re ill card” when I heard. I almost bought  a sympathy card for his wife at the same time, but that would have been weird.) Both men are around the same age as my mum would be.

The problem isn’t death, though. It’s loss.

About twelve years ago, my neighbour’s adult son (who lived with her) died. At the funeral, I met my neighbour’s sisters and one of them said: ‘We are all on our own now.’ And I said, trying to be nice: ‘You have each other.’ But that wasn’t what she meant. She meant they had no men left. At the time I thought it was an old-fashioned attitude, but now I’m not so sure.

It’s the losses that make the difference: the gradual falling away of all the people who matter. When my mum’s best friend died, she was the last woman standing from their gang of merry widows. There wasn’t much left for her once Mum was gone.

I’m not old yet, compared to them, but I can feel it starting. It feels like a new life phase, and I don’t think I’m ready for it. But you never are.

…If you’ve read this far, sorry that my first blog post in months is about death, and my last blog post before this one was also about death. I have actually been thinking about other things this year. In fact, I’ve been writing other things, which is why I haven’t been blogging much. So I have got plans about the future and it’s good. I am learning to adjust. And I have hope.