Tone death: Huw Morris on grief and remembrance

‘Dying and death have become increasingly hidden from the living.’

There is a mug in my cupboard that has an image staring back at me. It is a picture of me with three friends, taken in 1980. Two of them subsequently died. One, a few months later after sniffing from an aerosol can. The other, a few years later after a night of drink and drugs. In retrospect my teenage years were very risky. Quite a lot of my friends died. Even the person that took the photo died in a motorcycle accident.

As sad as these deaths were, they provided the wake-up call I needed to stop messing around. I didn’t do the things my friends had done, but I might have. Their deaths prompted me to start living my life properly. 

Over the last 100 years, dying and death have become increasingly hidden from the living. There are plenty of films in which people are killed in violent incidents, but few that deal with more commonplace accidental or slow deaths. This means there are few stories through which children and adults can learn how to deal with these real-life events. 

‘Their deaths prompted me to start living my life properly.’

My father died from liver cancer at the age of fifty-nine. My mother organised his funeral, and his family and friends attended to pay their respects, share in the sorrow and to praise his contribution to many other people’s lives. I used the small inheritance I received to buy a watch, to remind me that the time we have is limited and to make the most of it. ‘Memento mori’ as the Romans and medieval Christians used to say. 

Twenty-two years later my mother and younger brother both died of cancer. They, like a growing number of people, chose to go straight to cremation without a funeral. As they were atheists, we held a memorial for them in a field and there were few words spoken.

When I attend Quaker Meeting, in the quiet that surrounds us, I invariably think of my dead family and friends. Not in a morbid and maudlin way, but to remember what they did for me.

In the last few years there have been calls for the UK government to introduce a celebration day on the spring bank holiday, to remember people who have died. All Souls’ Day in November in the Catholic calendar is already an occasion to remember the dead as, at the same time, is Día de Muertos in Mexico, and Obon, among Buddhist communities in Japan. 

I am not sure whether we all need a specific day to remember the dead, but I don’t think we should forget them, and we should remind others that we are here for a short time. Being aware of this transience should help us focus on making a better world for those that come after. 

Quaker faith & practice 21.57: ‘If we… have not prepared ourselves in some measure for dying, what have we been doing? To face up to the fact of death gives a fuller awareness of God-given life.’

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