A Living Death.

The majority of us go through a well defined process if someone we love dies. That process helps us to accept the reality of what has happened, come to terms with it, & hopefully move on.

But for some very unfortunate people that doesn't happen.

For example, when someone is murdered & the perpetrator isn't caught. Or presumably even worse, when there is no body. It must be very difficult to move forward with your life when there are so many unanswered questions. We need the process to be complete, to say goodbye properly & know, as far as is possible what happened.

Similarly, when the person does not die, but is in a coma or suffers from dementia. The person we knew & loved & needed in our lives hasn't died but departed to a different reality to that which we occupy. They are still alive, but cease to be accessible to us & share our lives. The loss is very real, but there is no ending. The body is still there and functioning, but we cannot share our lives with them in any meaningful way.

Then there is the poignant loss of someone close through misunderstanding or conflict. There are always things we wish we had not said and done because none of us are perfect. Or, we may not have said and done things we should have because we were maybe preoccupied with our own troubles. There are different ways of looking at things, reasons may not be obvious or even reasonable. Communication breaks down. You become distanced from the person you love & in extreme cases they become dead because you are excluded from their lives.

These living deaths must be immeasurably painful. They put a huge strain on everyone involved & often lead to even more relationship breakdown because we all have different ways of coping. There is no choice but to cope. If we are faced with a situation like this we have to find a way of dealing with it. The only way out is to accept what has happened and accept how we feel about it on a moment by moment basis. But it is very hard.

Life & living isn't easy in the complex 21st century. As you age you see more and more of this complexity.