Unwanted visitor that holds out a gift to us

When I was a small child, being a "grown-up" seemed very mysterious but very definite

When I was a small child, being a "grown-up" seemed very mysterious but very definite. I was sure that there would be one absolutely clear moment when childhood would be left behind and I would suddenly know all I needed to know, writes Breda O'Brien

It was with much disappointment that I realised being a "grown-up" is just a series of transitions and, far from being possessed of all wisdom, that certain events still leave me baffled and reaching desperately for answers.

For example, it comes as a jolt to realise that I am now attending more funerals than weddings. While it is proof that I am most certainly now a "grown-up", it is not the kind of marker I wished for as a child.

In the last two weeks alone I have attended three funerals. The first was my Uncle Mick, my father's brother. As Mick's wife, Mai, said, although he was 82 it wouldn't have been any easier for his family if he had been 102.

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It seemed like he would always be there, doing his crosswords, piling his reference books in Aunt Mai's way. He had recently made a good recovery from illness, and yet, cruelly and unexpectedly, he died. It was as if a landmark from childhood inexplicably disappeared, rendering the terrain less familiar and more difficult to navigate.

Barrister Eamon Leahy died much too young shortly afterwards. According to all those who knew him, Eamon was brilliant, witty and generous. Unlike many big funerals attended by the legal profession and those immersed in politics, there was a palpable sense of people being stunned and bereft.

The law and politics, both callings renowned for their caustic tongues, could find only good to say about him.

And then there was Heather. There is no hierarchy of grief, and one death is not more deserving of tears than another, but Heather Young was just 19 when she drowned in Biarritz along with Janet Nicholson. Her drowning was a freak accident caused only by treacherous currents and high waves, contrary to some inaccurate and hurtful media reports which implied otherwise.

To say that Heather was special is no post-death massaging of reality. She was lit from within, glowing with life and energy. It was if she reflected back to all around her the love lavished on her by her parents, Wally and Helen, who were so justly proud of her, as they are of their other children, Karla and Mark.

Those were the recent deaths. It was equally harrowing when Laura O'Dwyer, a little girl aged 12, died in her first week of secondary school last September.

Then, last May, someone I had taught with for years died in tragic circumstances. Geraldine Brennan was that rare creature, a born teacher who knew her pupils inside out. She could quell with a glance or a killer comment any pupil who was even thinking about dossing, but whatever topic she taught, whether it was drumlins, the Masai, or a Heaney poem, it was delivered with a verve and panache that lingered in the memory for years afterwards.

A woman who loved craic and company, her premature death at 51 left her family, friends and hundreds of past pupils staggered and heartsick.

Almost anyone you meet could rehearse a similar litany of sadness. Such events leave us with an acute sense of the fragility of life, of how illusory our notions of control really are. Love is no protection against grief. In fact, real love probably makes you more vulnerable and exposed to pain, not less.

Anyone who suggests that there are easy answers to life's most difficult moments insults both our intelligence and our intuitions. There are no adequate explanations for why the young die, or the talented, or the much-loved. Are our only options, then, stoicism or cynicism? In part of a moving and thoughtful homily at Heather's funeral, Father David Brough reminded us of what Cardinal Newman had said: "Fear not that your life will come to an end - but rather that it will never have a beginning."

Perhaps part of our problem is that we flee from thoughts of death, rather than seeing what it can teach us. Our culture discourages this kind of introspection and dismisses it as morbid. Better to eat, drink and be merry than think tomorrow we might die.

Yet to face the reality of mortality is both life-affirming and a spur to re-examine our values.

One of my father's favourite sayings at a time of sudden death is that there are no guarantees. Along with this insight, which must be given some weight given that he is 86, he also cherishes the modest ambition of being the oldest man in the parish when he dies. What his friends who are 90-plus make of this ambition I have never been able to establish.

Yet there is something very healthy about this acceptance of the arbitrary nature of life and death, while at the same time being determined to live well every moment we are given.

Almost anyone who has been a mourner at a funeral is at least temporarily more tolerant, more grateful, more gentle, more aware of the need to support in any way we can those who are bearing the burden of grief. All too soon routine crusts our perceptions, and we slip back into unreflective living, allowing busyness and haste to dictate our priorities.

Grief, especially unexpected grief, is like an unwanted visitor who holds out a gift to us. The gift is one that we would prefer to reject, but if accepted, it can deepen our whole approach to life. It does not ease the pain endured by those who mourn, the loneliness, the longing to see the loved one again.

Nor should it, because those who have died merit our tears. But the gift does allow us to see that there is more to death than monstrous grief and pain, or the natural rage at the unfairness of life. Face to face with the reality that we all do our best to evade, we are forced to ask what really matters. When all that we had once relied on collapses around us, what is it that endures?