Learning To Expect Death
This week I mourned my granny's future passing. A strange sentence I grant you. But an experience I believe many of us are having, at this moment in history.
Death, our inevitable ending, something which we are all destined to experience, but rarely speak about till we face the loss of a loved one, and become wrapped in grief.
This week, due to a long string of events, I mourned my granny's future passing, triggered and consumed by the fear that I won’t have the chance to see her face to face again.
My whole family lives abroad, in Greece, I’m on the other end of Europe, the small wee Emeralds Isle of Ireland. The last time I was in Greece, was the September before the pandemic hit in 2019. I haven’t been able to visit them since. As restrictions eased this summer and international travel has been allowed since mid July, I felt it was my chance to finally buy an airplane ticket. This time I was going to go alone, and all I wanted to do was spend a solid week sitting with my granny, just sitting, and eating and chatting. I picked my dates so that it would coincide with the National Holiday of Mary, a day that myself, my mother and my granny celebrate as our name day. The 3 generations together, it had a symbolic significance to me, I was childlike in my excitement and anticipation.
As the week of my flight approached, once…