Before I say goodbye

Thursday, May 08, 2008

'I'd give message of hope'

Poet Medbh McGuckian (57), from Belfast, is married to John and they have three boys and a girl. She says:

I had a friend, Siobhan Kilfeather, and she gave her last lecture last January. She had melanoma but generously managed to attend a weekend symposium in Coleraine on my work. Sadly, she died soon afterwards, and I read at her funeral.

She talked about one of my poems and linked it with Keats. I'd just come back from Rome and we went to his grave. He was so embittered he didn't want it named, but now it's a place of pilgrimage. He was only 25 and felt his life was over. I'd say 'never give up'.

As well as a poet, I'm also a parent and have four wonderful children. I feel I've given something through them. My son Hugh is a doctor, like Keats, and he isn't in it for the money. He's concerned about the patients.

I had a friendship with Gregory Peck, an incredible man. We met when I won an Irish American award that he was presenting. He was 83 but had joy, majesty and humour in his life. It seemed as if he was never going to die. If you asked him, he'd say 'I'm fine' up to the end.

I'm reading Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain at the moment, and Merton's mother died when he was four or five, his father when he was 15 or so, and he was very much on his own. Gregory Peck, too, lost his mother, who left when he was a child. If you're deserted at an early age, you need to turn to something; Merton became a Trappist monk. To me, there is an amazing sense of love in the universe.

In Northern Ireland, we've just come through 30 years of awful events. Yet in Rome the cross-border orchestra was playing. People were in tears, there was a sense of getting together and the orchestra raised the roof. I would want to give that message of hope.

If I was giving my last lecture I'd very sad to be leaving people but I don't believe you actually lose people. Thinking of Keats, we know him through his language which is the most precious human gift.

Death should not have that power over us. I do believe in the resurrection and in Christ. I was ill last year with a breakdown, yet during that time I was extraordinarily helped by the Bible. It convinced me there are other worlds to tap into.

I also think we should trust in whatever preserves us. Coming back from Rome on the plane, there were two tiny babies who, of course, screamed all the way. I thought if this plane comes down, those two little ones haven't had their lives, although I have. The plane bears you along and that's the way we're supported. We're not on our own, there is a pilot, although you can't see him. You can't see the plane either, but it's a good metaphor for our existence.

To finish with my friend Siobhan, she had two funerals and requested a Johnny Cash song called something like I'll See You Again. Our modern music, although connected with drugs, sex and violence, also has this quality that Gregory Peck had, American in character, some quality of belief and trust which is very special."

'In my life I've loved you more'

Lynda Bryans (46), UTV broadcaster, is married to Mike Nesbitt and they have two sons, PJ (13) and Christopher (10). She says:

This may sound a little macabre but Michael and I have both thought ahead to the message that we would like to leave behind. This is partly because one of Michael's friends died suddenly. Nobody knew whether he went to church, what he wanted at the funeral or anything. I've gone into more detail than Michael and have chosen certain readings for my funeral, especially for my two sons.

One passage is from Lord of the Rings, as I'm a great fan of Tolkein and our boys know the movies. There's a scene where a little hobbit says to Gandalph as they're entering the last battle, with the Orks destroying the gates: " I didn't think it would end like this." And Gandalph says: "End? This isn't the end, but another journey each of us must make." He describes beautifully how we go into another world.

One song I want is the Beatles' In my Life. You know, "There are places I remember ... and people and friends that I recall ... but in my life I've loved you more." That's it."

'I want to see the walls coming down'

The Dean of St Anne's Cathedral, Belfast, Dr Houston McKelvey (65), is married to Roberta and they have one son, John. He says:

If I were giving my last sermon, I'd mention my indebtedness to my wife and son, to my working class parents who saw me through my degrees, and to my friends.

My wife and I have come through very tough times due to the nature of my pastoral work. When the papers have been talking about closure in the Rhys Jones case, it honestly does my head in. I don't think you can talk about closure with the death of a child. I remember meeting the mother of a policeman who had just been killed, when his blood was still on the ground. You bring that home with you so my wife and son have absorbed a lot of my parish ministry.

The other people I'd thank God for would be my mentors and gate-openers. Canon Jack Hawkins, my rector at home when I was thinking about my vocation; Canon John Brown, principal of the theological college; Canon Robbie Ellis in Dunmurry. He wouldn't have been a unionist, but served that community and he taught me a lot about the apolitical nature of Christian service. He was a senior league rugby player too and not a wilting violet. I'd also want to give testimony to the lay people who showed me what true Christianity was about. A member of my congregation, Agnes, whose son Brian was killed, looked at me through her tears saying 'if they ever catch the men who did this, I hope nothing happens to them as I don't want any other mother to go through what I'm going through'.

I wouldn't pretend to understand everything about God and in particular about suffering, but I've been helped by the old eighth century prophets who said you can't establish salvation without social justice.

And in the New Testament, Paul's vision of Christ's words on the cross — 'I'm thinking of the risen Christ tearing down the walls dividing the Jews and Gentiles', and I look at my city, Belfast, and want to see the walls coming down.

Paul was an excellent rabbi who saw the infant church couldn't be confined as a sect within Judaism. All Christian traditions want to reduce God to a form of rule-keeping, but ultimately what God has on offer is free, His love for us is free."

The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, Hodder & Stoughton, £12.99