Death

"And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
(Dylan Thomas)

Years ago I read of a tradition in certain parts of Mexico. Here people believe that a person dies three times. The first is when their body dies, the second when their soul leaves their body and the third and final time is when their name is spoken aloud for the last time.

You expect older people to die. You expect the sick to die. You don't expect vibrant, alive, young people to die. And yet they do. With as little warning as possible, they seem to slip out of this life with as great an ease as the elderly.

On Friday my daughter will attend the funeral of a friend of hers, Braun Scott Woodfield, who died serving his country in Afghanistan. She is finding his death hard to accept. It is the second friend she has lost this year. The first, her childhood friend Crista Carlson, is even harder to understand. When I got the call "We've lost one of the kids", I thought car accident, drug overdose, something, anything that could be explained away, blamed on something,someone. But no, that would be too easy. Instead she was dead within days of leukemia. No warning, no nothing. 19 years old and gone.

So on Friday as his friends say goodbye to "Woody", I will remember the dead. I will say their names out loud so that they never completely die. I will think of Crista doing summersaults on my back lawn, I will think of Braun driving my daughter home late at night. I will think of Ruby, my friend from Victoria, who died of brain cancer 2 years ago, playing Mah Jongg with such enthusiasm. I will think of Sue Bone gone these past few months, such a good mother, helping out at brownie and guide camps. I will think of family members whom I have lost. And I will mourn their going, because I am lessened by their absence, they are not. I wonder what I give the world, what space I fill in peoples lives. When I die will you remember me, will you speak my name out loud?" I whisper.

Are you listening?