Mortality...

My father recently had a mild stroke and an operation to remove gall stones. As usual I tried to put on a brave front and did not want to appear worried yet deep inside my emotions could be compared to a tempest that a sailor can't tame.

I have never reconciled with mortality or the idea of death. That's the reason I avoid funerals as much as I can, especially of relatives and close friends. Maybe because I believe that I'll return again to this earth in another form or as a human being. On the other hand, maybe that's me trying to console myself and assuring myself life goes on, albeit in another state or another world.

My father being ill lately has knotted my emotions and has stirred a lot of thoughts that I've been trying to hold down.

I posted before that Everything But the Girl's songs have been a refuge for me. Here's one that reminds me how important parents are:


British Summertime

Leaving at dawn to beat the traffic, do you remember that too?
Curled asleep on the back seat, do you remember that too?
The soundless dark, the empty road, do you remember that too?
And that child asleep, only eight years old, do you recognise as you?

June, July, September, stretched ahead and out of view.
The whole world seemed a safe place, and never ending too.
But it was never as simple as you thought, there were just things you never knew,
and up ahead your parents bore the weight of all their worries and yours too.

Windows down on the coast road, wanting to be first to see the sea.
The whole world seemed a safe place, temporarily.
But it was never as simple as you thought, and you found out as you grew,
that up ahead your parents had borne the weight of all their worries and yours too.
All their worries and yours too.