Death is a story!

This month death has been sneaking into my life! Not personally, but through family loses of friends, associates and of course through world events. Death is a word that conjures so many different emotions and combinations. It is much more that just a word. In fact is has its own personality.

As a storyteller, I have read, heard, written and told stories where death is a key element of the plot or even the main character. Some stories make me laugh out loud, while other bring me to tears, even in the telling.

At the wonderful monthly “Elephant Tales" storytelling sessions in London, our theme for June was cheating death. So I waded through my collection for one as yet untold. After re-familiarising myself with the ‘bones’ of the story it was tucked it away in its own little memory cache. I was looking forward to hearing many new stories at the session - both folk tales and real life encounters. And I was not disappointed.

In some stories Death was afforded a more human persona - childish, selfish, with familiar weaknesses or kind, gentle and understanding. Others, where Death was tricked by his own targets with both satisfying and devastating consequences, were particularly appealing.

What I was not prepared for was my reaction to my own story.

My story was the last for the session so everyone, including myself was in full story mode, letting the words take us where ever they would. The story was a retelling of the Hans Anderson story of the Mother, the Child and Death. The mother goes on a journey and sacrifices much of herself to find where her child has been taken and to confront Death. There she finds that Death is only doing the bidding of a greater power and the mother is then faced with a heartbreaking decision about her child’s and her own future.

I had read and prepared this story thoroughly. But it was the first time I had told it to an audience. And I felt a catch in my throat in the final passages, on the verge or tears. I finished to a momentarily silenced audience and was taken back by my own emotional reaction.

Later the next week, I met up with a teller of a personal story at that session, to discuss our reactions. We talked about the emotions, the effects of the events and the telling on both audience and teller. And we also talked about the need to be able to laugh and cry with Death. It is much easier to deal with Death as a third person in a relationship, to give voice to all that turmoil and to help process how we feel, rather than it being a dreaded word or event.

Importantly for me, I realised that stories can be a way to help us deal with this complex character who appears in our own lives more often that we might want. How we treat Death in our own stories is up to us. There is no right or wrong way to meet it, but as we can’t avoid it - why not make it a story worth retelling.

My current reading selection:

The Fables of Ivan Krylov - translated by Stephen Pimenoff

Tales of Kathmandu, Folktales from the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal - by Karma Sakya and Linda Griffith PHD

Demon Copperhead - by Barbara Kingsolver

Daughters of Jerusalem - by Charlotte Mendelson