It was the time of her life. Cake, balloons, fruit punch, a beautiful new dress. Oh, and all her family and friends. Of course, she had outlived most. But that's to be expected when you turn 100. We'd planned it for a very long time and for a year or two it felt like we could talk of little else. Would Granny make it? That was five months ago, and it's a funny thing, but now I can't help wondering, what next? Like when you're expecting a baby and all you can focus on is the birth, I guess I'd never thought beyond the party.
Obviously death awaits us all and presumably her sooner rather than later, yet my grandmother is still so very alive, so very sure of her own mind, that it's almost impossible to fathom her absence. When my husband is out and the kids and I are alone on a Friday night, it is not the company of my friends I first seek, but her company. I ring: does she fancy fish and chips? There is always tea and homemade biscuits for afters. And I fear, when she goes how I will ever compensate for the lost rituals.
Selfishly, I worry about myself, but not her; she has a strong faith and I know she will not cower when it's time.
What of the rest of us though? Left all alone in this anxious place. A friend gave me a book recently: Staring at the Sun, written by psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom. It is about overcoming the dread of death. But I don't think I do, I said. I fear those I love dying, but not my own death. Read it anyway, she urged.
Dr Yalom's central thesis is that awareness of our mortality is at the root of all anxiety. He believes we all have a fear of dying, only in some it's "covert" and in others "overt". If I do have it, I decided after last week's column provoked an onslaught of disgusted emails (see below for a small selection), then mine is covert. Feeling particularly thin-skinned last weekend, my thoughts, as they sometimes do when I am anxious, turned to death. Not in a suicidal way, I have no intention of curtailing things, but when I get to the end of what I hope will be a long life, I imagine I'll welcome death. Oblivion sounds quite restful to a busy mind.
