David oakman

David,

Funeral went very well on Monday, and I managed to play my part without too much drama. The months of preparation have certainly helped enormously, and now I feel stronger than I have ever done, but need to regain my focus and establish my direction.

So getting back into things now and beginning to work out what has changed.

I have put a great deal of effort into my own personal perspective on life and my relationship with mortality. Now my issues are not actually with my own life but with other people’s perceptions of it.

We live in a strange world where 'modern' (Western) society has lost its relationship with death and the natural mortality of the human race. As such people generally do not know how to handle it when it happens to them or others that they associate with.

I was lucky to have been given the time to face the inevitability of the situation and the ability to prepare myself for it. As such I am in a much stronger position now than I have ever been in the past. I also feel incredibly privileged to have been given the opportunity to experience the last years of my wife’s rewarding life.

This is a time of massive change and I am very receptive towards it. And I do not just mean my own personal circumstances, there is something much much bigger going on, that is only apparent through the ripple effect.

Maria, passed away on the 31st October, which is a significant date in itself, and I also believe it was her choice to do so. She was at home in bed with me and both her mother and sister had been to visit that day. She had reached a stage where her illness was depriving her of virtually all her independence and I do not believe she wanted to persist any further.

I spent last week preparing for the funeral that was on Monday, so now I’m spending this week getting back into life and working out what has changed, and more to the point, how I work forward from here.

Andrew