By Isle of Wight Observer
“Die, my dear?
“Why that’s the last thing I’ll do! I intend to live forever, or die trying.”
I smile at these two lines, because I wish life were so accommodating. I’ve experienced more of it in the last few years than I ever would have liked. After losing both parents in the past three years, I most cruelly lost my sister, who passed away at the age of 47 from motor neurone disease. As well as being my sister, she was my co-worker, fellow director, and the person most likely to correct me when I was talking gibberish.
On December 19, at 7.20am, she passed away. I was present. It’s a moment etched into me. Life continues as usual, but that moment, 7.20am, stays ingrained in my memory. Every year I always think of her when I board the ferry at 7.15am. But if I stood up and clapped at 7.20 every year other commuters would probably shuffle away, looking for the closest exit. I get it. They didn’t know Janey. So what’s it to them?
The idea is that, although grief is universal, it is typically expressed in a private way, possibly with good reason.
Public mourning isn’t new. In 1997 the whole nation appeared to vanish into a sea of soft toys, flowers, and shaky chins. But the British knew how to grieve together long before Princess Diana died. My father used to tell me how, following the 1958 Munich air disaster, it seemed like the entire city of Manchester attended the Busby Babes’ funerals. Tens of thousands of people stood silently, took off their hats and bent their heads. No selfies, no hashtags, and no desire to record yourself depressed. We do it every November, at Remembrance Sunday, at 11am – although I fear this becoming less so.
What Diana’s death did change was something subtler: permission. Suddenly it wasn’t embarrassing to cry in public, or admit that someone you’d never met had moved you. But I sometimes wonder, are we truly mourning together, or are we performing grief? Is it solidarity, or is it sheep-grief – the emotional equivalent of following the herd because that’s what one does on-line now? Light a candle, post a photo, Sing Oasis’s Look back in Anger, and feel you’ve fulfilled your grief duties. Maybe or maybe it’s the cynic in me.
Watching Liverpool toil against Sunderland recently, I noticed the crowd stand and applaud at the 20-minute mark – a tribute tied to a shirt number. Was it moving or a distraction? But it made me reflect: football may be the only place where public grief still feels sincere, not a rehearsal for social media. Perhaps we all crave a little communal sadness now and then. A moment to say, “This person mattered,” without being accused of attention-seeking. For most of us, grief largely remains – and maybe ought to remain – something quieter. Humour allows us to move past pain rather than trivialise it. When others would reach for Kleenex, the British have an innate tendency to joke. “Remain positive – it might be worse. You might be dead” or “I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather – not screaming like his passengers” is another classic.
Dark humour serves as a reminder that, despite our desire for a brief respite, life will always be ridiculous. So no, today, December 19, I won’t be giving standing and giving Janey a minute’s round of applause. I’ll keep that minute for myself – a silent homage.
And if you ever find me gazing out of the ferry window around then, don’t worry: I’m not pondering the Solent as an escape route, not just yet anyway.
Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones.
Michael Coyle is co-founder of Lawdit Solicitors