I’ve tried to cheer myself up by going to see a film today – Jurassic World!  I thought some nice straightforward dinosaurs would lift my spirits.

It sort of worked during the film.  It was captivating and escapist and I enjoyed it.  The trouble is, I’ve noticed, that when you’ve been absorbed with something like that, it’s actually more of a blow, a wrench, to come back to the real world and remember your situation and your problems.  It’s happened to me before recently, when someone gave me a computer game to try.  Your mind is drawn into this escapist, unreal place, and then it’s like reality is more real when you return to it.  You’re upset and reminded of your new status all over again.  You’re dragged down deeper under water.

Of course I can’t help thinking, poor John will never see that film.  I can’t talk to him about it, discuss it with him.  We always used to laugh about this concept in the Jurassic Park films that because something is a herbivore and not a carnivore, it’s okay to wander around right next to it and pat it on the nose, because of course it won’t hurt you.  What, like elephants and rhinos and hippos?  Like a bull in a field?  Like a stag, or a wildebeest, or a buffalo?  It’s only a herbivore, so let’s just walk right up to it, shall we?  Brachiosaurus?  Largest land animal that ever lived?  No problem, it only eats leaves, so let’s have a nice safe stroll between its giant feet!

Well, they still had people going on rides right next to herds of massive herbivores – but otherwise, it wasn’t too annoying.

I just have a problem at the moment with the world going on.  Every person in that cinema is just living, not thinking about dying every moment.  Everyone still here is here by default.  Yet I’m so overly aware, now, that it’s all temporary.  It’s all just like a funfair ride, and we’re all approaching the moment when we have to get off.  And we won’t even know about it.  And the world will go on without us.  There’ll be another Jurassic Park film we’ll never see.  There’ll be seven billion people still living on the planet, still reading the same books, listening to the same music, watching the same films and TV programmes we’ve seen.  So you’re gone from the world, but it goes on.

It’s difficult to explain – just something jars so much with me, that the world still exists to be experienced and commented on, but he’s not here any more to experience it and comment on it with me.