Goodbye James

One of my old school friends recently remarked, "The Grim Reaper has visited our road with increasing frequency in the past year!" Yes, it is one of the more unpleasant aspects of living in a road where all of the homes were built in the early 1960's. Many of the original residents are now octogenarians. I find them very interesting people with the time to talk to you and share life experience and their many years of wisdom, but it is sad to observe them 'moving on' one by one.

Having previously lived on a new housing estate filled with young families and couples, I now enjoy living with my family in road where the properties are more individual and residents are a very mixed age group. Some of them purchased the properties as new homes around 50 years ago. I realised that the houses were pretty much the same age as me, although I like to think I have worn a little better so far. The houses will no doubt have the last laugh as they watch me carried off prostrate one day in a large glass estate car!

Now I want to tell you about James. I recently attended the funeral of this lovely 88 year old man whom I had known for around 25 years. A kind, considerate, unassuming person, James always greeted you with a huge smile and a gracious word. To most people he was just another little old man. Our western culture is not good at celebrating old age or giving much credibility to the wisdom that comes only with many years of life experience.

We constantly celebrate 'new' because 'old' is considered obsolete. But one thing that will never become obsolete is kindness. James was a very kind man. You often hear it said, "He never had a bad word to say about anyone", but how often is that true? In our critical world most of us like to have a bit of a gripe. But James was always so positive about people. He was also interested in everything. Whereas many more elderly people give up on rapidly advancing technology, James had a PC, a laptop, an iphone and a flat screen TV, and he knew how to use the lot!

But even more amazing was when Maggie, one of his carers, asked about his past. They were just making conversation really. James increasingly needed care in his last few months on earth and carers were eventually coming in three times a day. Maggie asked him,

"Have you lived here long James?"

He thought for a minute to add up the years and replied, "Forty one years."

"Really? And where did you live before?"

Now Maggie was expecting a reply like 'just up the road' or at most somewhere in Britain but not too far away.

"Thailand", he replied.

Now that wasn't what she was expecting. So Maggie began to probe. What was his job? In his last job was working with the BBC in London for a few years, but he had always worked in radio and associated electronic engineering. So she asked him how long he had been in Thailand and where he was before that. It turned out that James had lived and worked in Malaysia, The Philippines and other places in Asia. He had brought up his family abroad and was very well travelled having visited China, Africa, Iceland and most of Europe. He had visited a long list of countries and could speak a number of languages. Maggie was used to visiting elderly people from a generation where most people travelled very little. James was something different indeed! As they talked, she discovered a wealth of information. This man had led such an interesting life.

To most of his neighbours who went about their daily chores, he was just James. While they went to work every day and occasionally went to Majorca for a holiday, they assumed that James rarely went further than Tescos. They had seen him care for his wife in her infirmity, and they had witnessed his friendly smile, but little did they know the rich history and incredibly interesting life of their neighbour.

We often see funeral cars going by. Occasionally we get annoyed as we are held up by a funeral procession crawling in front of us making us late for an appointment. But how often do we think of the person who has died? How often do we consider the true value of life? How much do we consider the value of the contribution they left here or the pain and grief left for the family when they depart? I always say a little prayer as a hearse goes by nowadays. I have come to realise that life will come to an end for us all, and it is not the amount of money we make of how high up the ladder we climb that really matters. The problem is that in order to climb the ladder you often have to tread on someone else to get by them! No, what really matters is what we do with this little life while we have the chance. Listening to the tributes from so many family members and friends at James's funeral it was clear that he was never an ambitious man, but he was always a caring one. He was never the kind to tread on others to reach a higher level. James was kind, considerate and loving.

He used his intelligence and lovely character to bring some light into the lives of the people around him. He had been all over the place and had done an amazing, incredibly interesting job, but he never boasted of it. Few of the neighbours knew until he died. Attending that funeral made me more determined to live a worthwhile life. The rat race is for rats, not for thoughtful, caring people like you and me! Lets choose to live a decent way so that people will not be saying as they did at Scrooge's funeral, "I thought he would never go!" but rather, "We will miss him, he (or she) was so kind." That's the kind of legacy I want to leave, and I guess you do too. Goodbye James, you will be sadly missed.