Our aim is the same
I cajoled my father for eating cod. ‘How can you eat that?’ I said. There’s hardly any cod left in the ocean.’
‘I don’t care’, he said, ‘I like it.’
He didn’t care. He wouldn’t be here when cod was extinct, he reckoned. His was a nihilist attitude. After death, for him, there is nothing. Life is for the living. But perhaps that is where our differences lay - in our understanding of what ‘living’ means.
From the point of view of energy … well … it never dies. All energy transmutes into a different form, but the amount of energy remains the same. So in those terms, there is no such thing as death. But we are young in our knowledge of what happens to our energy after death. We have a lot to learn.
My father died on the 5th February. He died before I could reach him - a five hour drive away. My daughter and I saw him less than half an hour after his death. Though I felt sorry that he hadn’t waited for us, we were there with him in the moments when his body’s warmth still glowed, felt his hands, touched his face and held him in his passing.
As I walked the other day with my dog on the edge of night, watching the sun’s shadow unveil the stars, listening to jubilant goodnight bird song, my father was with me.
He had opinions, but he would not blame others for theirs. In simple terms, he would eat cod but accept my unwillingness. His overriding trait of his life was loyalty to his family and complete commitment. He was committed to us and committed to his other loves - opera - football, security.
As the hem of night’s cowl sheltered me that night, I knew that though there are people who may not understand or see the world as I see it, that does not preclude them from unity in our goal of survival. Words play strange games. Without words - take them away - and perhaps it can be more easily seen that the aim is the same.
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