Now the nation mourns, or will it?

 I am still  reeling from the death of my friend,  it has really knocked me out, and now the Nation might feel the same as the death of Prince Phillip has been announced. Whilst resting I am learning all sorts of things about him that I never knew in my lifetime.  I often feel this of friends and family but how curious after having lived a lifetime with him in such a key role that much about him I did not know including that he used to shoot tigers inspite of heading up the WWF!.  

The internet can be a source of distraction, but when it throws up death, it is so sudden, you do not know whether to believe it.    But then their death remains suspended.     Many friends who have died are not recorded this way,  they are just in my heart, but some like Abdou were famous enough to have their deaths announced on radio or on the net.    This week dealing with death has made me revisit their lives both in my memory and online: 

Chimi Dorji At least 30 people have been killed so far in cross-border raids, kidnappings and ... to assimilate ethnic Nepalese have promoted ethnic conflict (State Dept Human ... May 1992, A group of gunmen assassinated Chimi Dorji, the Deputy District 

Shem Chweya 

The recent death of Shem Chweya ? a middleweight bodybuilder who held the Mr Kenya title in 1993,1994, 1995 and 1997 ? at only 42 years has raised many eyebrows  

There should be more records of him than this, at the time of his death it was publicised quite a lot which is how I found out he had died,  but perhaps that was too long ago in terms of the internet,  instead all that remains is this slur on him.  

Virginia Harvie

Sometimes the memory of a friend lives on in the Just Giving Pages.  Virginia was a friend who I studied my degree with and then when I invited her to my 50 birthday party said she might not be there as she was not well.     Both her husband (former SNP MP) and daughter,  thrive so that is nice, but this page was set up as a fundraiser after Virginia's untimely death. 

Sadly whilst thinking who to invite to that party,  I discovered at least two people, I had lost contact with, had died already Phil Evans and Phil Sheldon,  two men more different it would be hard to find, but they had both been very good friends with me at one time. 

Here is how The Guardian started its recollection of the life of Phil Evans,  who I knew through my degree tutor.   A man with a passion for politics but with a lack of appetite for food, a complex man.  

The political cartoonist Phil Evans, who has died aged 68, was for a time one of the most prolific of his generation. His work was funny, concise and uncompromisingly on the side of the exploited and the oppressed. In the 1970s and 80s, he worked mostly for Socialist Worker and related publications of the Socialist Workers party, but his skill and excellence were soon recognised by the wider labour movement.

Phil Sheldon on the other hand had a passion for golf and photography and when I worked in Barnet, it was lovely to go around to his house and talk about sport. I lost touch with him when I moved, but was again shocked to learn of his early death.  

Phil was part of the Barnet gang, who I met through my then husband and sadly many of his friends have died,  who I wish were still here, people like Tony and Dave Burns. 

They were part of my youth,  more recently I came to meet Satya a follower of Mooji and a friend of my son's.  I stayed at her house a couple of times, and was in touch when she became ill but never got to keep in touch as much as I would have liked, but was aware of how her health was and the challenges she faced and the support she got.     It is touching to see the memorial they put online for her.   

Too many of the people I knew have died young,  famous and not famous, and in some way by trotting these few out I am signalling, like a virtue signaller, oh I had " famous" friends, but all the friends and family who pass, it is a bit like more and more of the tapestry of one's own life is fading, falling away.  It is real sorrow for them, but also for oneself.   One feels so powerless when someone is snatched away.  Heartbroken that another person has gone.    Thank goodness lots of good friends have remained and people who I once knew are still turning up online in surprising places (like Allan Doig - now a father! )  and some people I will be happy not to meet them again, so perhaps it is useful to realise that.   It is I suppose one of the privileges of growing older that more and more people are in some ways alive through our memories, until in the end it is our time to die.