Death…What would the dead want from us?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, supreme court justice, dies aged 87
I was really sad to hear this; she was an icon and an inspiration.
It’s up to those of us left behind to use our voices and our platforms to ensure women’s voices are heard.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1933-2020
“Women belong in places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception”.
A legend, a hero, an inspiration. Her life was a constant fight to ensure women were in the places where decisions were made and now it is up to us- those left in her wake and better for it- to carry on that fight!
I did invite her to come on my podcast we were waiting for her to be better. She did read my book Talking Law Volume 1.
This year has been emotional, from the death of my dear friends and family member to other friends, all deaths are sad but grief is tough.
I often ask what would the dead want from us?
I have written about our legacy & human foot print after we all die and what the dead would want from us?
The below was read at the funeral of our dear colleague, Bob Golinski at his funeral, I did not know it and think it rather beautiful.
For Andrew Wood by James Fenton
What would the dead want from us
Watching from their cave?
Would they have us forever howling?
Would they have us rave
Or disfigure ourselves, or be strangled
Like some ancient emperor’s slave?
None of my dead friends were emperors
With such exorbitant tastes
And none of them were so vengeful
As to have all their friends waste
Waste quiet away in sorrow
Disfigured and defaced.
I think the dead would want us
To weep for what they have lost.
I think that our luck in continuing
Is what would affect them most.
But time would find them generous
And less self-engrossed.
And time would find them generous
As they used to be
And what else would they want from us
But an honoured place in our memory,
A favourite room, a hallowed chair,
Privilege and celebrity?
And so the dead might cease to grieve
And we might make amends
And there might be a pact between
Dead friends and living friends.
What our dead friends would want from us
Would be such living friends.
Good bye, Jamie Aarvold, John Broadley, Allen Coleman, Tony Morris, Denise Johnson, Bob Golinski, now Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
