It takes a village….
It takes a village they say, to raise a child. It took a village, in my recent experience, to accompany one of its own into death and to be buried.
This morning, maybe 100 of us, gathered in the village car park and walked up the hill together and onto the moor, where a fallen hawthorn provided a seat for a 360 degree view of the sea to the south and the open moor to the north. There we recited these lines:
Waking this morning I smile.
A brand new 24 hours is before me.
I vow to live each moment more deeply
and to look on myself and other living beings through the eyes of compassion.
Then we ate flapjacks.
A couple of days previously, we had buried Liz, my friend and neighbour. It had been my privilege to put together and hold the service to remember and celebrate the seasons of her life and then accompany her to a green burial ground, where we laid her, in a simple woollen shroud, into the earth where she will gradually become one with it.
I have held a good many funerals over the years but none that brought a whole community together in quite this way. But then I’ve never witnessed someone as generously allowing themselves to be witnessed or as graciously receiving whatever gifts each of brought to her bedside, over the last weeks of her life. Some came with news of the outside world, others flowers, another would meditate with her or read to her. As she had asked of me, I came for her to talk to me about death itself, or to share any anxieties she might have which felt too hard to ask of others. There were very few. 4 ½ years of facing life limiting illness unflinchingly and increasingly compassionately, had developed in her a wisdom and serenity which did not fail her at the end. Every morning when she awoke she would say those four lines we recited on the moor and every day, to the best of her ability, she would live them.
On the door of her house, her family had put up a little sign: “Come on in”. They were equally generous in allowing all of us access to our friend, so that we, like they, could prepare for her death. We watched as her skin turned yellow and the flesh fell off her bones. We watched as her spirit shone with more and more purity through her beautiful eyes. We watched in the last days, as she seemed to withdraw further back from the surface.
One day she said to me,
“Why am I still here?”. Nothing seemed to be in the way of her letting go. Outside her window, the birch tree she had tended for 33 years was gradually letting go of her leaves.
“The tree doesn’t let go of its leaves all at the same time”, I said. On the last day, her friend came to offer a meditation. And then…the tree of life released her.
Over the next 3 weeks, the community which she had helped to build for over 30 years, through love, friendship and advocacy for the land and sustainability and for justice and freedom, came together to honour her. Whilst I created a service with her family and to which 17 people contributed readings, memories, songs, activities and meditations, others prepared and decorated the village hall, led teams of ushers, served food and drink, provided craft materials, marshalled car parks, and more besides.
It was Liz’s ethos to include everyone who wanted to be included. We built the service around that ethos of inclusivity: 200 people packed the hall, over 100 stayed for lunch, perhaps 60 or 70 came to the burial. And this morning, maybe 100 of us walked in the sunshine to ‘Liz’s spot’, the fallen hawthorn on the Ridge.
I know that the next months, probably years, may be tough for her husband, son and daughter. I know her friends will mourn her and miss her. But I also know that in her dying, not only did she help prepare us for life without her, but she also offered us this wisdom:
- Be ready to die. We need not fear death. While we live, live well, compassionately and with integrity, but when death comes, let it teach us and take us in its time.
- Death is the shedding of a body not the end of love. Life and death, like the seasons, like the coming and going of waves on the ocean, are a continuum.
- Do not hide from death nor hide away our dying. In allowing ourselves to be visible, gifted and witnessed, we offer a preparation for grief, for those we leave behind.
Dear Liz, you have left the most beautiful legacy. The place you occupied in everybody’s heart, a place shaped uniquely in each of us, will, I trust, transform as you transformed, into an ever purer place of love and goodness. We will remember to include those we might have dismissed. We will hear your voice in our own when we speak for the trees and for the generations to come. And we will each, in our own way, become better human beings because of you.
With love
Nickie
PS
Whilst Liz left the details of her funeral to her family to decide, there were certain things which really mattered to her, which she had discussed with them, the funeral director and myself. She chose her woollen shroud, she wanted to be carried from her home through the village for her service, she wanted to have food and drink for us all, to include 3 or 4 of her favourite readings and to be buried in the green burial ground. This too was a gift: her family knew her wishes and could honour them in a final act of love for her and the body in which they had known her.
If you would like help thinking about your own funeral, however many years away you hope that might be, please feel welcome to be in touch. I am happy to work one on one or, if you’d like to gather together a few friends, in small groups. At the very least, may I gently suggest you have a think about what really matters to you in your life and therefore what you would wish to be honoured in your death. Write it down and put it with your will.
NEWS
Friday 12th December – THRESHOLD: a film by Florence Browne funded by the Guardian, is released on The Guardian platform
and in The Guardian on Saturday on Saturday 13th December there will be an accompanying article about me and about the film
The film is called Threshold and it features the Threshold choir I lead – MoorHeart Threshold Singers in South Devon- and the place that singing can have at the end of life. It also features some of my work. It was made sympathetically and sensitively by Florence over a period of 18 months and includes us singing for those who are dying, interviews with those looking towards death and me baking cookies! I think it’s much more uplifting than you may imagine.
Let me know what you think here . I’d love to hear from you.
BUY ME A COFFEE
Thank you for your continued interest in my writing and my work. I am grateful for all your feedback and engagement in whatever form. As you know, much of my work in the area of dying and grieving is gifted, including this blog. If you would like to gift me, I should be both heart warmed and affirmed. You can do so here.
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