Life wasn't made to be easy!

Life seems to ebb and flow like the tides but without their regularity. There is happiness; there is sadness; neither of which can be predicted. They happen. Or not. But life continues and all we can do is to stumble along and try to arrive at some point of stability, of normalcy, which is neither good nor bad. Just normal.

So, while many, many millions of people, since humans first walked the earth, have made this journey of Life, it was new to me. I have had to make my own way. Travel my own road. It is a lonely road for it is impossible to travel the identical road with a companion. We may have someone close whom we love – like with Magucha and I, and we were very close – but even then she could not know everything I thought or why I did what I did. In that regard I walked alone and I still walk alone. As did she.

I am an individual. We are not clones. Also we can never “possess” someone in the accepted sense. I believe this is why we grieve for those who have “gone away”, have "gone on ahead" and are "out of sight" - because we could never possess them. We, do however, miss them, grievously miss them. 

But we still all need companionship. After all we are social animals and group together. This, to me, gives rise to a paradox - that we are at the same time, both social beings and yet distinct individuals. We each have our own distinct thumbprint, our own distinct iris pattern in our eyes, our own ear shape and many other individually distinct characteristics.

We do, however, all need someone to talk to, to be a friend. This is why I search, why I enquire – and I always will. 

That death may inspire a deep-seated dread of “extinction,” is I believe quite common, and yet it may be that death is another aspect of Life; an aspect that we may not understand, but which may lead to a completion of our existence into the fullness of being human. We were born – we die. We are human.

In my case, I grieve because I remember that today, 12^th December, in 2015, which was a Saturday that year, was the day that Magucha’s pancreatitis first took hold. I took her to hospital, because of the pain she was suffering, but she never came back. Five weeks later she was dead – on 21^st January 2016.

Many memories.

It is still there.

I suppose it will still be there until I too die – one day! My grief that is. I know I have written about this before but we will all, all, at some stage of our life experience the searing knife cut of the parting, of the death of someone close, be it child, partner, sibling or parent. It is just part of life. If there is a beginning there needs also to be an ending. 

But this physical ending of someone close – as anyone who has experienced it will testify, lasts and lasts, and lasts. Of a certainty no one will experience my grief, just as I cannot experience theirs. It’s so personal. 

My way of coping with grief varies from day to day, even hour to hour. Sometimes I go for a longish bicycle ride; sometimes I read, either a book or poetry; other times I write; sometimes I listen to music – I like both classical and country and western. I do, however, with one or two exceptions, find it difficult to talk to others about my grief. They might not understand my way of expressing my grief, and I don’t want to belabor or otherwise impose on their emotions with my, possibly uninvited, feelings.  

I find that poetry, music, of any kind and books, fiction and some non-fiction, all contain sentiments of love and parting, either through death or in other ways. Always love, a meeting and a parting. This is not so strange as love is the most powerful emotion there is, and I don’t just mean the eruption of hormones that all experience at some stage of their life. I mean that unquestioning love, that deep knowledge, that trust, that comfortable companionship that develops with time together.

Of course the passage of this love, this knowledge, this trust, to arrive at the place of comfortable companionship is never smooth! That is not the way it works. We will all stumble on our life’s journey and we will all have misunderstandings. But that just makes the arrival point more worthwhile.

I can testify, with some feeling, that life with my wife, Magucha, was often tempestuous. But it was never dull, never boring. Her quick fire Portuguese temperament and my (relatively) slower and less emotional temperament meant that we both had to work hard at our relationship. I know she found me very frustrating at times and would spare no criticisism. She could do that but no one else was allowed to! She would fire up, almost vibrate with anger in my defense if anyone dared criticise me in her presence! I found that very touching and, in a strange way, deeply moving.

But it was all worth it.  I for one had thirty-six wonderful years with a dear friend; with a loyal companion on our journey through life; with a staunch ally; and with someone who I know loved me, deeply. Just as I loved her, just as she was, deeply loved her. 

I of course, cannot now speak for her, but I believe there was nothing, short of some criminal intent, that we would not have done for each other. I know that I would have defended her to my last breath.

This is why I, for one, have found her death so hard to bear; the apparent severing of the physical bonds, so difficult to come to terms with. I will never believe that her soul – she most definitely had a soul – died with her physical body. It is there somewhere. And I know, just know, that sometime, somewhere, we will reach out and hold hands again. 

Saudades!

Currents in Life

I have been finding it difficult to write anything for some time – I have no “mojo”. But then life throws things at one which are unexpected and for which one may be totally unprepared.

It is almost as if there is an under-current which no one can see but which sweeps one hither and thither as it sees fit, I suppose. Take for instance my wife, Maria, or Magucha as she was universally known; above all she was my best friend for nearly thirty seven years. That is a big chunk of anyone’s life. Now that she is no longer here, alive and vibrant (as she was) I have to try to live – not my life with her anymore – but to live my life in a totally different manner.

This is very difficult to explain. While Magucha’s death was not a complete and absolute surprise the speed and the manner was. She had been very ill before and had not been 100% well for quite some years. Now it is almost as if she is still with me. For instance when I shop for food I seem always to look first for what I know she used to like. Sometimes I catch myself turning to ask her if she would like this or that!

To me our marriage was in truth a partnership. We were in it together, different roles, but each was half of a whole. We had our differences, of course we did, but we were still very strong together and I never thought of her as anything other than an equal partner in our marriage. She was always independent and never liked to be tied to any particular course of action – she was in every respect a free soul.

I forget the exact words but there is a saying that goes something like this:-

“If you love something let it fly free; if it returns its yours; if it doesn’t, it never was”.

This is what I tried to do with our life together and by and large I think I succeeded.

I’ll end this post with something that the American rebel and “Gonzo” journalist, Hunter S Thompson, wrote that I think applied to and gives a good insight into Magucha’s whole approach to life.

“ Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow! What a Ride!”