Today everything stopped.
Every thought, concern, plan, priority and purpose was contained in the purity of the moment. We sat and stood and cried both together as one and yet each at our very personal proximity to mourn the loss of our uncle.
Sidhu Masserji was one of those jolly uncles, the ones who with a glance, a wistful smile and a booming joy fill the room with his love. His six foot six frame was not large enough to contain his joyful heart. At the same time the largest man in the room and at the same time the biggest child. The honesty of his smile and warmth of his embrace would melt an acre of cares.
Today however, the cares were swept away not by the embrace of his warmth but the stillness of his unbending departure.
Death is a constant reminder of our inevitability and the destiny of everyone we do and do not love. Its agony can only be felt in the joy of our love. The deeper we love, the wider the berth of our anguish. And yet, despite the drama and ceremony we wrap it in, death is and will always remain completely ordinary. It is the most sobering and ordinary of experiences we can ever encounter.
Death is ordinary because does not distinguish. It does not compromise between race, creed, colour, fame, title, age, wealth, wisdom, insanity, the saint or the devil. It is what it is. There is nothing to negotiate. Death is our simplest expression of clarity. Our final statement.
My cousins’ fellow police officers graced the funeral with full military honours today. They lent a fitting dignity to our seperation from a man whose entire life had been about grace and connection to others. And yet at the same time, the formality of their polished uniforms and exact saltues could not take the ordinariness out of the stiff reality that lay bare in front of us for all to see and feel. The absolute normality of our mortality.
"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow"
Macbeth, Act V, Scene V
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