Answers (11)

This is it, we have reached the final instalment of the Q and A, the "to answer" jar is now empty so these are the last 6 answers...

49) What is your greatest regret?

I'm struggling to think of an answer to this. Obviously I have made choices that possibly / probably weren't ideal. Of course if I put my mind to it I can think of conversations that could have progressed differently, relationships I could have nurtured more, actions I possibly ought (or ought not) to have taken, places I perhaps wish I'd been. I am sure I have unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) made decisions which have not been in my best interests and which have also negatively impacted on / hurt others. But while learning from our mistakes and misjudgements is of course incredibly important, dwelling on regret seems particularly unhelpful. We cannot change the past. We are shaped by it, and we can learn from it, but we can not rewrite it. It is easy to look back at decisions or actions we have made and judge them by the standards of the person we are today ... the person we have only become because of the things we did then. For sure, some of the choices my younger self made I might not make again as the person I am now ... but had I not made them, I wouldn't be who I am. So it is in all honesty that I write that I don't believe I am holding on to any really significant regrets.  

50) Where does happiness come from?

I consider myself immensely privileged to have found happiness, but that doesn't mean I have found the answer to where it comes from. Of course I experience all the other emotions too: I get sad, and scared, and frustrated, and lethargic and overwhelmed and ... but at some deeper level I know myself to be happy. I know that this is a privilege, one which I trust I never take for granted. I can identify some of the things that contribute to my happiness, but I don't think I have a universal answer to where happiness comes from: I wish I did. I have met so many people who wrestle with deep sadness and struggle to find true joy: if I knew the answer to this and could gift it to them, I would do so in a heartbeat. 

51) What is the weirdest thing about you?

Obviously I looked up a definition: apparently weird means "very strange, unusual, unexpected or unnatural." I suspect there are probably quite a few things I could choose for this one. In many ways I am an entirely conventional product of my culture and upbringing, but I also acknowledge that there are aspects to who I am and how I live my life that perhaps aren't entirely typical. Some are fairly superficial, others perhaps more fundamental. I guess some people find it weird that I honestly can't remember the last time I wore make up. I know quite a few people who think it strange that I have never learned to drive. Some might even think me liking marmite is weird (but they'd be wrong). I know, or at least hope, that some of my values and principles and choices are at least a little bit counter-cultural... but I hesitate to call them weird. 

To be honest, I think I am entirely normal, so this is probably really one other people need to answer for / about me!  

52) Who is your greatest hero? 

Google tells me that the definition of a hero is "a person who is admired for their courage, outstanding achievements or noble qualities."  I can't possibly pick out one individual. I am privileged to meet people every single day who meet that definition: People whose resilience and capacity to hold on to hope, whose ability to keep loving and keep laughing through unimaginable trauma, is nothing short of heroic. 

53) Is love a feeling or a choice?

I guess my answer would be that it is a combination of both. I do think feelings come into it: we have a natural affinity with certain people, often times in ways we can't really explain and which may seem entirely illogical, even to ourselves. There are people we click with, and who we naturally feel at ease around, or want to spend time with, or ... 

But love is more than that too. It is, most definitely, also a choice that we make and remake. Love is beautiful, but not effortless. It is about having in mind another person's wants and needs, and responding accordingly. It is about showing up and being there for each other when it is easy, yes, but also when it isn't. 

54) What's your biggest dream?

I honestly didn't plan it this way, but it seems fitting to end on a dream. I have mulled over for a while all the things I would love to see and trying to choose the "biggest". In the end, though, I think they all distil into one huge, but really quite simple dream. I dream of living in a world where we all, genuinely, see one another as fully human with equal rights, dignity and worth. I genuinely believe that if that dream were fulfilled, if we truly, genuinely recognised one another's humanity, everything else of which I dream would also fall neatly (or to be honest fairly messily) into place.  

Death is something, after all

There is a very famous poem by Henry Scott Holland which begins with the words "Death is nothing at all". I understand both the intention and the sentiment. I am sure there are many who have found it a great comfort and, of course, I do not intend to cast judgement on anyone who has found solace in it. There are lines within the poem that I like and with which I don't disagree.

But it isn't, in fact, true. And for me personally, it doesn't really feel comforting either.

Because death is not nothing at all. Generally, I think it is probably healthy and helpful to acknowledge that death is, in fact, very much something. When someone dies, even the language we use so often dances around the reality. How often do we hear people speak of loss, of passing away, ...? But refusing to name death doesn't make it go away. Shying away from acknowledging the enormity of it doesn't make it disappear or make it easier. Having had some involvement in such things recently, I can confirm that even on a purely practical level, death is certainly not nothing at all; on a social and emotional level, even more so.

Death is not nothing at all, because life is not nothing at all either. And our relationships with those around us are one of the things by which our lives are most enriched. Whatever our beliefs about what happens after death, however much confidence we have in eternal life and whether and how we might meet again those from whom we have been separated by death, to suggests that death is "nothing at all" feels like it denies just how much our relationships matter in life. It should be ok to acknowledge that death is painful, confusing, strange. That in their dying, as in their living, our relationships, with all their beauty and their messy complexity: with the light and the laughter, with the relief and the regret, with the poignancy and the pain: are most definitely not nothing.

Recently I have experienced the deaths of two people I knew and loved.

One of those deaths was sudden, and shocking. A friend who it had definitely not crossed my mind, the last time I saw him, that we would never meet again. He was one of those people who you'd not even realised you'd assumed would just always still be there ... until they aren't. He has left a gaping hole in a community which will probably never be entirely filled. A community which is still reeling. Whatever his death was, it was certainly not "nothing at all".

My aunt, meanwhile, had what can only really be described as a good death, at the end of a good life. She died after a short illness, well looked after and with family at her side. I have described her death to several people as sad, but not tragic. But it was not "nothing at all" either.

Over the past couple of years I have watched several other people I know struggle with the grief of the deaths of people they loved too: in some cases at the end of a long life, in others much too young, much to soon. None of these deaths were "nothing at all" either.

So in a similar vein to Caitlin Seida's response to Emily Dickinson's "Hope is a thing with Feathers", here is my response to Henry Scott Holland's poem:

Death is something after all, Henry.

Death is something, after all,
And while there may be times 

When it seems 

You have only slipped away to the next room

With a sharp jolt

Or a gentle whisper

We remember

You won't, in fact, 

Pop your head around the door frame

To interject

To take up where you left off

And if we call you by your old familiar name

Putting no difference in our tone
It hangs in the air

Unanswered

There is an echo to this emptiness

And silence does not fill the space

As the stories once did

We will, indeed,

Play, smile, think of you. Pray for you.

And I promise we will 

Laugh as we always laughed

But we will also

Cry

And sometimes 

We will laugh through tears

Or cry through our laughter

For there will be light

But there will also be traces 

Of the shadows it casts

And

Your absence will change us

Just as your presence did

For this is love

There is absolute unbroken continuity

But things are not the same

So you see 

Death is something, after all, Henry,

Because so is life

But you are also right...

That all will be well.