anxiety

the sun is out today and it is warm. I got my kids off to school and now am home and i have a pit of anxiety at the base of my sternum. it is probably something to do with the fact that i am, as i type, also phoning my son's school to try and get a refund of 80 pounds for a trip he missed due to us failing to get up in time. I want the money back it's not even mine it was loaned by my brother.
I think it is also due to the exhaustion of making my son's birthday special yesterday, and getting up early- following a boozy evening of celebration- and the aftermath of silence now I am home. I feel slightly shaky. After I had dropped daughter off at school this morning, it was just me and nephew in the car plus baby; and we sped from Brockley to his school in Greenwich listening to Radio 2. My mind was awash with thoughts of my late sister and every now and then my little nephew's gaze would meet mine in the mirror. We share a prolonged wave and grin, enjoying the moment of communicating through the ingenious reflection of the mirror that lets our eyes meet despite my back being turned to him. "You alright little man?" I say, wondering if his mind too is awash with thoughts of his mother. But who am I to know? His little pale, freshly washed face and large blue eyes are framed by a halo of strawberry red blonde hair and he is dressed in navy blue school garms; I watch him thinking, and love him so much. 

My daughter was back at school following a week off with a mild case if impetigo. Following a day of great fun on her big brother's birthday which left her and her cousin grimy and grey, just as kids should be, she too is pale and washed and sparkly all ponytailed and ready for school. She is so excited to be back as she goes in and her and her little red head cousin share a lingering hug in the doorway as they part to go to their separate school room worlds for the day. It's not often they agree at the same time for a hug- one usually being reluctant, but this hug is genuine and heartfelt and a comfort to them and me who watches.

On my eventual way home following a check in and coffee with my mum, I drive home and acknowledge just how irrevocable the change in my own world is. Utterly irrevocable.
Now my mind flicks to the grave yard where the wilted flowers must still cover her grave. The shock we have felt in these lost weeks has subsided from explosive horror, to a drawn out continual feeling of things not adding up. But with death nothing ever adds up I suppose. It's the circumstances surrounding death that will never add up. Can dying ever be perfect? Can it be an experience that is positive. I can't see how. Even when an old person dies in their sleep, which sounds almost pleasant, the longing for everything to stay as it once was; for time to stop making fools and shadows of us all; of our earnest lives; our plans; our families ......that longing for things to remain doesn't go away. But with my sister, it's the uncanny story of live and fate, that uncanny choice of God or fate to choose her,  to take away from us now. Her, so utterly colourful and prism like and talented and full of depth and feeling of unsurpassed love for her child, for us. This must be how it is for all of us who lose someone. People are dying all the time.
It's almost not the death, it the dying. It's the why? It's the disbelief. Is death ' it was her... time'.
Is dying a passport; How did you go? ...Oh I was given a disease, how about you?... Oh I got stabbed by a bunch of racists; you? Oh I died in a car crash, it was all the family bar our little baby brother.......Really? I died of I heart attack He gave me so much time down there I was 98 human years old when I left that mortal coil, he made me lose my marbles first i was completely unaware of who I was by the end, having my nappy changed like a baby...but hey I am here now. Funny how he has such different plans for each of us.
It just doesn't add up.  
If there was a heaven, if dying is a passport; the way out that fits in with the bizarre sequence of events in human life (I.E we can't all don our angel wings and fly to heaven on a cloud singing 'goodbye I will see you when it's your turn, I love you.....).
Why the choice of ways to go?
Why the messy ways to die? Why the pain sadness and suffering of the dying and then the living?
I try to put the spectrum of my religious 'knowlege' and spiritual understanding on to the case for dying. I try to put a spin on dying. I imagine myself dying in some random way and then leaving my dead body behind with scores of grief stricken, confused, devastated family while I just hop off to this other dimension and catch up with all the people who have died. I see my sister; everyone who has died has done so in some weird way.
Why the suffering?
Then I think of the weird symbolic story of Easter; the story of Jesus- born to a unmarried mum; murdered by a cruel society; degraded and put in pain; placed in a tomb; then walking out with his friends a few days later to tell them he has not died. Then the bit i can never recall... getting back to heaven. How does he? I must check it out- I am sure he sits on a cloud with God or something and up up and away he goes.
I mean, the whole Jesus story is actually very interesting. The gospel from my sister's funeral was about Jesus' disciples saying -How do we know where you've gone....How will we get there? Anyway i digress with brain diarrhoea.
But having just read through this and spell checked etc, i remember that Jesus says 'I am the way to get there'. I like his disciples am at this moment still confused; is this Jesus guy full of riddles or what. But I forget his words, but he does explain how.
Some days I wonder if the bible and Jesus etc is an elaborate grief self help book that some bereaved people created long ago to convince themselves that there is a heaven- they put all their energy into creating a belief system based around their remarkable, kind, caring, loving friend- his ordinary life; his semi ordinary birth (to a single -virgin- mum). they made it all add up in religious/spiritual terms and worked on it as a testament to their love for him, to keep him alive in memory forever for ever. but then i imagine it's all true and this is really the Way of loving and dying and it is like looking into a remarkable painting and suddenly finding the meaning; seeing the hidden picture; communicating with the divine and really understanding.