Let's dance in the grave yard

A new lease of life, and a new follower on twitter, Paul Cann.

It is Wednesday morning, and I shall soon be with my very good friends at the Age UK singing group in Witney.

Back when I had undergone two house moves on top of Gill's death and life felt very fragile and uncertain it was great to be able to join in with others and sing.

Today it is as if I was fifteen years younger. The change came quite quickly with the spring this year. Suddenly I had strength, stamina and energy again.

It has been hard to judge what exactly the turning point was, but things picked up rapidly following my presentation to about a hundred people at Birmingham City Football club on the theme of Death in Our Society.

Afterwards, the Medical Director of the John Taylor Hospice wrote to me that it had been a brilliant and memorable presentation.

He bought a copy of my book, "A Journey Through Grief."

If only I had received as warm a welcome when I was looking for support from Age UK, when I was trying to launch the book.
The chief executive of "Dying Matters" shared a platform with me to launch the book.

Age UK would not help in any way at all.

Instead, all I received was a curt e-mail to say that they would not help. No valid reasons given.

They could have told me that they were organising a big event at the town hall which would have been a great place to promote my book. They did not mention it.

I turned up having heard it mentioned on the Today programme that morning.

Age UK has taken over the Oxfordshire befriending Network, where I used to work co-ordinating counselling. I met the new boss there who was keen to work with me on end of life training.

That did not happen. There were no responses to my e-mails from Oxbel.

She soon left that job. Why?

I attempted to speak to the director of Age UK at the lunch break that day. He refused to speak to me.

When I said I would make a complaint he raised both hands with his thumbs up, which I took to mean he welcomed the idea, and equally that he did not care if I did complain.

I found this a bizarre response.

It gave me the impression that any complaint made would be ignored.

No competent manager encourages people to complain.

A moment's politeness exchanged for months of bitter acrimony! Folly.

I contacted Age UK head office Nationally and complained to them. They promised to get back to me but have not done so in over  a year. I contacted the office again and have not received an acknowledgement. Instead, I find that Paul Cann is following me on Twitter.

Recently I have made more attempts to connect with Oxbel.

Eventually, after I said I would complain at their lack of response I received a telephone call from someone who said she was in charge of Oxbel now, but had no knowledge of anything I was talking about.

She said she had just suffered a significant bereavement and was new to the job.

I expressed my sincere condolences and suggested she should maybe take some time off. She hardly seemed to know what day it was.

I am not sure if there is any point in complaining to Age UK.

Their publicity says they aim to make everyone feel valuable and valued.

In most of my interactions with their management I have felt unworthy or worthless.

I don't expect that from any organisation let alone one that claims to offer positive value to all members.

Luckily,my singing group is left to run undisturbed by Age UK. Managers are almost never around.

A memorial space

http://gillian.owen.muchloved.com/frame.aspx?

Somewhere you can remember Gill without going to her grave in Charlbury.

Well, you can remember her anytime anywhere.

But you can light virtual candles and send in your stories and pictures here

Another review

A deeply moving true story which describes Nick's thoughts and feelings as he copes with the grief of losing his wife Gill suddenly. You can not fail to be touched by some of the beautiful poems or to relate to some of his feelings whether you are grieving or not. Very touching, raw and personal. Definitely worth a read.


Terasa Beech

A Journey Through Grief accepted by The Poetry Library on the London South Bank

I am delighted to report  that "A Journey Through Grief" has been accepted by the publications committee to be included in the National Poetry Library on the South Bank in London.

The poetry library is situated on the fifth floor of the Festival Hall.

The library no longer accepts all donations of poetry books offered to them, so I have a sense of formal recognition for my work.

With typical artistic insecurity about my own value, I am unsure if this is partly because Chipmunka, my publisher,  has been accepted as a publisher there.

From the fore word to the book

Foreword

Every once in a while someone with a gift happens to cross our path. We think we’re lucky that they make us smile and laugh. We may even recognize how much we learn about ourselves when they trippingly cause us to recognize our simple and very human lacks.

Nick Owen had the chance to experience that kind of love with another human being which brings joy with the day and some quality of peace even to our restless, life-boggled nights. In the company of his beloved, Nick recognized the effervescent preciousness of reality which is…and which we all long to experience in life.

Then she was gone.

Every once in a while someone with a gift happens to cross our path. And maybe…just maybe we recognize an even fuller breadth of fortune, when the loss of their company brings us to reflect in an emotional mirror which now seems forever cracked.

So much about human life is chance. We hope to live with luck, love and passion without wanting to recognize how much rationality love teaches and how that expansion of our personal universe will remain forever with us even if there comes a day when our beloved is no longer there to touch, to gaze upon, to reach out towards on the mortal plain.

Yet, through the enduring sense of who we have become, because we loved and were loved, we become more solidified and assured. And because of that infinite endowment, when beauty happens upon us we are more gratefully gratified and fully aware…of that beauty, and of our capacity for ever-deeper yearning.

Nick Owen’s ‘Journey through Grief’ is one man’s rumination and photographic capturing of a life which in its ‘un-becoming’ has become something far greater than he wanted to imagine he could see. Through poetic words, through admitting how much it hurts to lose someone we love clearly and dearly, Nick endows each turn of nature’s branch, each flood of air stirring a long-unnoticed parlour curtain with the awareness of potential, chance, presence, passage and precious opportunity.

‘Journey through Grief’ isn’t a sad book - it’s an honest one. It’s a gift which in your hands is taken into your heart for however long you carry it’s blessings with you. It’s a reminder that our very humanity and personal vulnerabilities are often the keys to all we seek, all we may yet know, and that we treasure most dearly.

- Boots Hart

Los Angeles, California

                               

                                       

    

                                                         Preface           

This book id dedicated to those who grieve, and to Gillian Allison Owen, who loved me and left me to grieve for her.

Poetry brought us together, and it is fitting that I begin this journey with a reference to her favourite poet, Shelley. I have slightly adapted these lines fro Adonais to fit with a woman’s death, rather than a man’s. Please excuse my poetic licence.

            Peace, Peace! She is not dead, she doth not sleep-

            She has awakened from this dream of life-

            “Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep

            With phantoms an unprofitable strife

            And in mad trance, strike with our spirit’s knife

            Invulnerable things. _We decay

            Like corpses in a charnel: fear and grief

            Convulse us and consume us day by day,

    And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay    

            She has outsoared the shadow of our night;

            Envy and calumny and hate and pain,

            And that unrest, which men miscall delight,

            Can touch her not and torture not again;

            From the contagion of the world’s slow stain

            She is secure, and now can never mourn

            A heart grown cold, a head grown gray in vain;

            Nor, when the spirit’s self has ceased to burn,

     With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn.

   

Some feedback from writers poets and critics on the book

Quotes and comments from people who have had a preview of the book.


"I am a great believer in the public and collective potential of poetry, but I also think that a certain kind of poetry does resemble the ancient practice of a lone individual talking directly with God or the sacred," Alex Niven, editor of the Oxonian Review.


"I would be happy to support this book. It is very poignant and can help others." Jason Pegler, publisher, and author of "A can of Madness"

"Thank you for sending your poems though, which I've read. 

As they stand, I think they would make a lovely personal memorial for your wife" Kate Clanchy. 

(This one does not sit well at all with me! I publish it for the sake of balance. I just find it patronizing and insensitive.)






"I was honoured to conduct the funeral of the extraordinary woman at the centre of this book. Nick's book is intensely intimate: it takes the reader over wild seas of self-reflection, provoking learning all the way. Well worth reading." Emma Restell Orr, writer and druid.