It may be sooner than you think…

James Preece on mortality

This morning, I passed the post office on my way home to lunch where my wife passed me the salt. I hope my daughter has passed her exams or she may be passed over for a place at university. What a lot of uses for ‘passed’ we have! In April this year my father ‘passed’; that was how the funeral director put it. People were sorry about his passing. Some may have gone so far as to say he had ‘passed on, but nobody seemed willing to simply say: James, your Dad is dead.

I understand that people mean well and the intention was to avoid hurting my feelings - I would probably use similar language if speaking to somebody who might be going through a difficult time and not in the mood for a Monty-Python sketch. This Dad is dead, he has ceased to be, is bereft of life, shuffled off ’is mortal coil, etc. Still, it seems a strange quirk of our post-Christian culture that we are so proud to have left superstition behind, yet we are unable to speak openly about something so commonplace as death.

The general reaction seems to be one of surprise - as though we did not know all along that death was coming! Perhaps I am a little morbid, but whenever I visit an old Church or Cathedral I’m always drawn towards the gravestones or paintings with skulls on: ‘What we are, you will be,’ reads the inscription. Memento mori. Remember you will die. It’s a timely reminder - a spoiler alert if you will. Every single one of us, everybody we love, will someday be dead.

It may be sooner than you think. A couple of years ago I turned forty and was told by many well-meaning acquaintances that ‘you are still young’. They mean well but they are wrong - I know this because I have recently been learning to skateboard and the difference between a young body and an old one is immediately obvious the moment one throws oneself down a ramp on to some concrete. How quickly the ‘you are still young’ people became the ‘you are too old for that’ people.

Learning to skateboard at my age is generally characterised as a midlife crisis and perhaps it is. Yet what is a midlife crisis but radical action taken in the face of one’s own mortality? If not now then when? It’s later than you think and if you are one of the many ‘young fogies’ in the Latin Mass society - you do not know the hour. If you have something in mind to do someday then I suggest you get on and do it. Ask that girl to marry you, buy that piano, have another baby, learn a language, take up a new sport.

Another strange experience around losing my father (there’s another onelosing - I didn’t lose him; he was in a box at the funeral directors); another strange experience was being asked to describe him. How do you take the full sum mystery of a human life and turn it into a few words? He was a Dad? He was an electrician? He ran a pub for a while? It all seems so insufficient. I had a similar experience once when somebody asked me what my wife was like - my mouth opened but no words came out. She’s like... She’s like... She’s like my wife. I like her, I think she’s nice.

This is why it’s important to spend time with people while we can - photographs and memories are no substitute for the real thing.

One thing I remember about my dad is he used to explain his parenting; when I was whining as children often do, he would say that parents are only human and children don’t come with an instruction manual and these are his thoughts about whatever it was. If it turned out those decisions were wrong, he was capable of doing something I have since discovered is almost a superpower: He was able to apologise to his children. Something I recommend to all parents!

As Christians we cannot speak about death without speaking about our hope of eternal life in Jesus Christ. Remember you will die, not so that you fall into despair but so you go to confession often and really live! My father was a complex man; for many years he devoted himself to his family, at other times he struggled with alcoholism and depression - but I would say most of his sins were less of the ‘premeditated evil’ and more of the ‘led into temptation’ variety.

Does that mean I think he is in heaven? It means I hope he is in heaven (or on his way) and I will pray and have Masses offered for the repose of his soul. His name was David Preece, please take a moment to pray for him and for your own loved ones who have ‘passed’.