In my previous newsletter in July, I celebrated the life and death of Morag Anderson. Her sister asked me to conduct the memorial service at the House of an Art Lover. What a privilege. I’ve spoken at many funerals, but never conducted the whole service. There were over a hundred people. Near the beginning, I invited a young opera singer, who knew Morag since before she was born. She started to sing Ae Fond Kiss; after the first line tears pouring down her cheeks stopped her voice. I invited her mother – one of Morag’s best friends, to stand by her daughter. She started again, and I’ve never heard Ae Fond Kiss sung more beautifully. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. The rest of the service went smoothly – the room filled with equal amounts of laughter and tears. Near the end, I read a poem – Thread – I wrote for Morag, and read to her a few days before she died. During the reception, after the service, several people came up to me and asked me: “Will you do mine?” ! On the anniversary of her death in 2018, I will publish a pamphlet of 20 poems and letters by Morag.
Not long before Morag died, I was at the StAnza poetry festival hosting a tribute to my dear friend Sandy Hutchison – and the event was filmed by Stuart Platt and posted on vimeo.
About the same time, Helen Lamb died. For the past few years, Helen has been a key player in Lapidus Scotland developing our facilitator toolkit Words Work Well Scotland. Re-printed below is a tribute to Helen I wrote for her funeral.
Helen, there’s heavy rain, gale force winds here by Loch Craignish – everyone you know will be storming too, now your long nights are over re-writing your novel or trouble-shooting all those family matters; and there’ll be no more muttering in the morning about the things you haven’t done: manuscripts and essays still to read and mark, not another draft grant application to proof-read and improve my clumsy syntax.
No more tutorials, no more meetings, no more workshops, no more readings; someone else will have to do it all – you’ve done your bit and did your best – you can stop now, take a break and rest assured the long nights are over, your storm has passed, but we will continue. We must continue to knock on the doors of Creative Scotland, The Scottish Book Trust, the National Lottery, NHS Education – all those people.
where words worked well for all, a big happy smile holding up your dear friend Magi’s latest book of poems: Washing Hugh MacDiarmid’s Socks.
There’s nothing more you need to do, no more muttering in the morning –your work is done, it’s time to play: Warrior-Woman-Writer-Worker: your horse is spent, your time is up Helen, storm is over. None of us will be the same without you.
Someone once said that life is like a good novel – You don’t want it to end, but to be any good it does need to have an ending.
For me, one of the greatest glories of nature is the cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth – on all its scales, from the millions of years it takes for mountains to rise up and be worn down, then rise again, to the seasons of the year and the life-cycle of a fruit fly. I want to be part of that great cycle. Not to be part of it renders life almost meaningless.
But for the fact of death, none of us would be here now. If some amphibious creature that crawled out of the primeval ocean had become immortal, evolution would have stopped at that point and there would be no human race. So, I am profoundly grateful to death for my existence, my life.
When I was in my 70s it was discovered that I had prostate cancer in a very advanced stage, which meant It had almost certainly spread to vital organs. You could never be sure, the consultant said, but possibly I had only two months to live. The news didn’t seem all that terrible to me. What I was sorriest about was that I couldn’t spend longer with the people I loved. But I really could not complain. I’d had a good life. My wife, who was a nurse and who has seen many people die, tells me that given a choice between dying too soon or too late, too soon is by far the better option.
A few months before receiving this diagnosis I had said to a friend: ‘Whatever happens to me from now on, however awful or disastrous, I will still be one of the luckiest 1% of the world’s population.’ I had in mind the starving millions, the homeless, the victims of war and violence and those who never got a chance in life to fulfil their potential.
So, as I say, I had no complaints. It is easier to let go, I think, when matters are resolved, when you have done most of the things you want to do and, above all, when you have found a path to gratitude and forgiveness.
PS: After radiotherapy and hormone therapy, the cancer was completely cured. My PSA level is now nil.
Then later in the same week, he went for a walk on his own, and didn’t come back!
Bring a poem to share – with 4 copies – yours or by someone else. Bring writing materials and vegetarian food to share.
One of the first PlaySpace Publications was a pamphlet of 20 poems by Kay Carmichael printed and distributed to everyone who attended her funeral.