Some childhood memories

Dear friends,

I have not written on my blog for a while. It has been a very busy time for me with lots of family coming and going.

Anyway, I do enjoy engrossing myself in stories about the war. Perhaps some may call it a morbid fascination. In fact, my son once brought me a novel called 'War Junkie' - needless to say I have never got round to reading it. I have an objection to the haphazard association between war and a drug addiction.

I have thoroughly enjoyed an article recently about the 'Unknown Soldier'. In a visit to Westminster Cathedral, I did visit the tomb. It provoked some very deep thoughts. Namely thoughts about death. It is no lie that I am creeping slowly but surely closer to it. The soldiers in the World Wars who risked their lives must have thought about it a great deal. Perhaps they did not? Perhaps they took each day as it came and in return did not carry the burden that it entails. Of course they could be killed at any moment but on the other hand, they must have been aware that they equally had their whole lives ahead of them.

My first association with death was when I was about 8 years old. I was incredibly distracted by it. A close relative had died recently and my mother had decided that me and my siblings should not attend the funeral. Maybe if I had gone, I would have been less scared - maybe realised that the relatives life was being celebrated and felt that sense of closure which funerals often evoke. Either way, I can remember thinking about it for an incredibly long time until eventually I told one of my brothers (the eldest one, 5 years my senior). His reaction was dismissive - he was far more interested in his marbles which were sprawled out across the yard. I still to this day remember that he just responded by saying that he had gone through that same stage and that mother had told him everyone does. I was not especially comforted by the response but he and mother were right. Only a few weeks later, I was far more preoccupied by a new foal which had been born on our farm.

I have always thought about death on and off since that day. I think as you grow up, things are put into perspective and as my mother used to say, 'The World Is your Oyster'. You become preoccupied with living - building a family and a home. I think that now I am living alone and am unable to move around as freely as I would like, death has become a more poignant topic. I feel as though everywhere that I look, it is staring at me. On the television, in the news and even when I go for my daily walk I pass a cemetery. It is strange that the depression that I felt when I was 8 has gone full circle and the same emotions have been brought to the surface at 87. I wish a foal could come along and distract me - maybe I will plan a trip to the local farm and see if one has been born recently!

Guten Abend.