A DEATH

 On 4th of September 2024, Andrew Winston Murgatroyd , known as Andrew Winston Ostle, died as the result of, as we found out heart failure.  He had been missing for a few days and concerned neighbours called the police, who then tried to enter the home and were prevented from doing so until some of the piles of rubbish had been moved.  Andrew was found in the bath semi-naked as if he'd been trying to wash himself, no one will ever know why he was that way or what he had been doing in the bathroom when he breathed his last breath on earth.  He was, just 76 years old and would have been 77 years old in November, by which time all of his remains and belongings which have been removed from the house and his ashes ?  Who knows where they will be,  for on 23 September 2024 his corpse will be burnt at the crematorium at an unattended ceremony as none want to attend.  Then nothing will be left of him and his time on earth and all the will remain of him is the memories of those who knew him and were left to sort out the selling of the house and all the other bureaucracy that goes with the death.  Soon even that will be completed and like billions of others Andrew will never be known, or perhaps one day some one might look and see his name on some search engine for some reason or another. 

I knew Andrew in life,  that is I met him in person, perhaps a few dozen times in the last 29 years,  because he was the ex-husband of my wife.  Having broken with my ex-wife I had some empathy for what he would have gone through and over the years we tried to let him be part of our extended family for the sake of the boys.  I did not particularly like him and he tried many times to cause friction so we stopped inviting him to our home for a meal.  If it had not been for this relationship,  I would not have had anything to do with him, because I did not think he was very likeable something so many others have said about him.

Aly was relieved on hearing of his passing with very good reason as even after all these years the last time he was here visiting his son,  he tried his same old tricks with her and she became fearful of being left alone with him, particularly in any small spaces like the kitchen at Darren's garage.  The abuser had not changed in any way and without me being around thought he'd get away with it once more.  

The sad thing is that Andrew had a long history of being "odd" and nasty long before Aly met him and none in his family really liked him or loved him apart from his grand mother withwhom he lived for the first 3 years of his life.  His youngest sister, still has a love for him, but not a like.  

From what we have heard, far from being heart broken at Aly leaving, after the initial shock of her doing so, he had the happiest time of his life, able to do what he wanted, when he wanted and all of his money to himself.  This seemed to fit in with what he once said to me about Aly and I quote it,  "I no longer had a use for her and you do" which is a very strange thing to say.

So now Andrew has left and no matter how many chances he had to change to make a good life for himself and others, he never did and now has no more chances left.  

A death brings so many questions, that are impossible to answer for do we ever really know a person? There are so many whys and wherefores and what ifs about the life now gone.  There is also the greater sadness of knowing that ultimately the person who at one time had everything most people ever want in life rejected them all and died the way he did leaving others to clear up his mess one final time. 

The death certificate has been issued and the bill for the cremation will be the final acts of his life apart from those other legal details and once those have been completed it will be as if had never been here just like those other billions of souls whose names and faces and lives we will never know and that ultimately is the fate of us.  When we are born we are given the first of many numbers and when we die the numbers are all that is left of us and that is really sad, as it is the reality we all face.