Lest We Forget: Life is not Non-Death
by Dr Sinead Murphy It’s that time of year when we name the best and worst. Competition is stiff, on one side of the equation at least. How many worsts there have been, each hardly conceivable before it was suddenly real. But there was a worst of all. In October in Milton Keynes. Two brothers moved to the side of their grieving mother, putting their arms around her shoulders as she sat before the box containing their dead father’s remains, only to be reminded by an official from the crematorium that they were not permitted to be within six feet of their mother during the ceremony – as if she had been lowered into the grave as their father was being raised onto the pyre. It is the simplest of mourning rituals, a consoling arm around the shoulders. A fragment of a ritual, really. And yet it too has been made to retreat before the march of Health and Safety, those twin murderers of the last vestiges of our arts of living and dying. What’s the big deal? So the Covid crew has challenged us this year. It’s hardly life or death. They are right: a consoling arm around the shoulders is not life or death. Nor is the smile of an unmasked stranger. Nor is the shake of a ...