"Embracing the Inevitable: Exploring the Concept of Memento Mori in the Context of Life and Death"

Memento Mori; Remember You Must Die

Reflections on my Mother’s Passing, Doha Airport,  5th May 2024

I have just returned from my second trip to Australia in 3 months..a record for me in my 22 years living in the UK. Sadly the most recent trip coincided with my mum’s death. Three weeks ago I received a call from my sister to say mum’s kidneys were operating at 5% and it was unlikely she would live for much longer. I was on the plane almost immediately but despite my best efforts to  get back in time, she passed whilst I was in transit.

I arrived in Melbourne very late  and so it was not until the following day that my two sister’s and I went to mum’s house to prepare it for the wake and assess things. Upon opening the door and moving through the house, what did I see?

The car keys, sunglasses, a travel card and her gym pass in the bowl on the hallway table.

A neat little pile of paperwork, pens and spectacles on the dining table.

A basket of half finished quilted hexagons next to the armchair in the living room.

Pale View of the Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro, marked at page 83, and a pair of cheap of reading glasses laid on the bed.

A small green ceramic mug with the remaining dregs of a black coffee by the sink.

A red lipstick on the bathroom counter.

Two pairs of trousers and three t shirts in the ironing basket in the  laundry.

An empty bottle of red wine and the weekend newspaper in the recycling pile by the back door

A blue cotton dressing gown hanging on the clothes line, still slightly damp.

This small and poignant series of still lifes /lives touched me deeply and reminded me, yet again of that tenuous, if any, line between life and death. All these objects were still so alive with mum's day to day life, her personality, her routines and the way she occupied her house. They all assumed she was coming back to them and yet they felt deserted, the dust their function stripped and relegated to no mans land. If mum had known that she wouldn’t be returning would she have washed her mug, ironed and put away her clothes, emptied the recycling into the appropriate bins?

Sadly, these objects were the first things to be cleared away. If I'd thought about it earlier I would have insisted that they be left in their in their place until last or at least photographed them, to savour the last remaining sense of my mother's physical presence and touch.