I don't know about you, but I hold no fear of death. I put this down to two things: One, I came close to it as a child, and found it quite a pleasant experience. Two, a rather humorous second-hand encounter with the Grim Reaper, via a short story by Damon Runyon, written, I presume, shortly before he dies in 1946.
Runyon's stories are better than a day at the races, which feature largely in his repertoire, along with Prohibition era bad guys and their molls, way back when a gal might not mind being called a moll. I devoured them in my teens, and now, with a greater knowledge of what was what, there, then, I enjoy them even more. Looking back, I suspect the romance of the speakeasy may have been what drew me to undertake American Studies at College, though I subsequently found New York not to my liking at all.
I am much influenced by what I read in my teens. In 1969, I discovered the stories of Miss Read, and dreamed a very different romance: that of becoming the headteacher of a Village School, which, in 1996, I managed to achieve. That the job I picked at eighteen should fall into my lap in my forties, is evidence enough for me that, sometimes, the universe delivers.
I am straying, as ever, far from my intent, which is to come to terms with the very serious illness of a friend of mine, Penny.
First, she was unwell. Something vague and intestinal, and a weariness that would not lift. Then it was the treadmill: Doctor. Hospital. Tests. Hopeful Diagnosis. Exploratory Operation. Hopeless Diagnosis... . Here we are then, I have reached the point of this. Doing what we often do with death, avoid it until it simply won't go away.
Penny and I served at Gloucester City Mission together, often in the Prayer Room. We were very different pray-ears. Penny was firm with God, and fervent, I, somewhat more tentative. I have studied the sacred texts and see where we're both coming from: "Ask and it shall be given to you," Penny says. I nod. I don't think I've quite got this asking right. I'm more of the, "Suck it and see," school of prayer. The Holy One already has it sorted, let's see how it unfolds, kind of thing. I DO ask, but tend to lose interest in the outcome.
I am unsettled because Penny has us all praying for a miracle. You see where this is going?
I want to take her by the hand and reassure her. Penny, I will walk with you through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, there is nothing to fear.
Who's right? Am I defeatist? Or am I seeing with a greater clarity, that the miracle is to have lived life as a conscious entity in an incomprehensibly awesome cosmos, until our fragile bodies can no longer carry us?
Today, I will light a candle, and keep it burning, for Penny.
For her miracle.
For her miracle.
(Here's that Runyon Story I wrote of. To lighten the mood. )
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