Finding light in the shadow of death

This week was certainly among "the worst of times" what with the funeral of an old, yet in another sense, surely not old enough, friend, who was cut down by cancer. Barbara was in her late forties and I had known her for around the last twenty. She was a friend who I'd not seen that often in recent years - an artistic and thoughtful eccentric who drew a large shocked gathering of family and friends, for what was her last show.

Death is the last taboo not least in the chronological sense and Tuesday brought me face to face with it. Again, I was reminded that we live like it's not going to happen, yet in our hearts we all know it's an undeniable part of the "deal" when it comes to turning up for this brief earthly existence. Those taken before what we see as "their time" give us the biggest shock – if at our peril – we make assumptions about longevity and live like there IS a tomorrow that we can comfortably – yet on this occasion painfully - take for granted.

There was a palpable and deep sense of shock among the grief-stricken assembly outside the brutally-architectured church - a cold monstrosity offering little material comfort to the raw and vulnerable. People who I remembered from my nightclubbing days – the energy core of our peer group - were amassing, today clothed in dark, sombre colours and not the upbeat finery of old, often the subject of Barbara's now legendary photographic skills.

Seeing one familiar face after another, I tempered the joy of reconnecting with an old mate remembering that we were all there to say goodbye to one of them. Dutifully, I adopted the universal solemnity that is normal at such functions, despite an urge inside me to let some light into the proceedings and relieve the pain. Not in any way to be disrespectful, you understand, but according to anther cliché of seeing off the departed – I wondered if Barabara would really have wanted us all standing round, feeling useless, doing the usual dismal thing. And whilst I thought she probably wouldn't, the pressure to conform was undeniable.

I couldn't help saying it was good to see people. I asked them how they were, and felt obliged to add: "under the circumstances".

As we filed in, I again felt a wave of grief – an emotional tsunami that would take me by surprise several more times that day, highlighting my ignorance and "poverty of understanding" as spiritual teacher Barry Long put it before his exit from this worldly stage. Again and again, I composed myself with the rationalisation that death is an integral part of life, but still it shocked me. How on earth, I wondered, can we make this bitter pill any easier to swallow?

Whilst I mean no disrespect to the purveyors of the ritualised ceremonies that shepherd our dead into the next whatever, I know their ways and ideas are not my own. Too many questions are left unanswered. Death – as we currently know it in our rational, yet near spiritually-bankrupt world – has been industrialised to an unhelpful extent. It's become a formality that helps us get back to normal ASAP, each time that awkward bump that we swept under the carpet is shockingly revealed.

Whilst we live in denial of death, it will surely traumatise us when it rears its ugly head, and we need time and space to face it; not a conveyor belt and platitudes.

For my part, I'm looking to stay with the love and not the loss. I'm endeavouring to hold to the truth of life that physical death was always part of the deal. I'm also betting the shirt on my back that the love I feel for Barbara (and anyone in my life) - right now as I write - is the eternal and unchanging, saving grace that never dies – even if, once again and perhaps many more times, the physical vanishing trick almost fools me.