Remembrance and reality
Where I live there are quite a number of widows / widowers like myself. I've asked some of them when I might hope for the sadness to begin to moderate. 'Never' came back their universal answer. 'It doesn't happen like that'. 'So what does happen?' I asked. Shrugs. Shaking of heads....
It's nearly five months since Delia died and although I have taken up the reins of my own micro business life - small as it is, Pictures and Poems demands long hours and great concentration of mind - she is always here with me. The thing that brought this grieving thing into sharp relief was my receipt of an invitation by Highland Hospice to a kind of Memorial Service on May 24th. Dee, they said, would have an entry in their memorial book and would I like to have something inscribed therein, in remembrance? This is what I sent back ...
As it was before
Yes, I remember how it was before;remembering now most keenly - at the start and at the endingof each, so crowded, passing day,the way it was with lovely Dee.For at such times I see her clearher timeless, ageless smile can stem my mostly withheld tears, can soothe the quickly passing yearswith words that only I can hear.
She’ll not grow old as I grow old; and she is in my waking thoughts,my sleeping dreams: how’s that?Who is to tell, who is to understandwhy you can or cannot holdthe fleeting shadow of love’s lifeor rays of sunshine in your hand?For her, decaying time’s no morebut I will always know just how it was: the way it was, with her, before.
Bryan IslipApril 17 2014
From the sublime to the prosaic, my cards and booklets and prints, etc, do well this year. And my 2015 calendar is particularly in demand. Dee didn't want me to go through the stress of creating and selling another calendar. It's the only one of my products with an automatic sell-by date. What doesn't sell you throw away. Gut-wrenching! But in making it a new 'desktop' format instead of my customary wall hanger I figure it's sufficiently different for her and me not to worry. So I won't. Just move on with the selling.
It's nearly five months since Delia died and although I have taken up the reins of my own micro business life - small as it is, Pictures and Poems demands long hours and great concentration of mind - she is always here with me. The thing that brought this grieving thing into sharp relief was my receipt of an invitation by Highland Hospice to a kind of Memorial Service on May 24th. Dee, they said, would have an entry in their memorial book and would I like to have something inscribed therein, in remembrance? This is what I sent back ...
As it was before
Yes, I remember how it was before;remembering now most keenly - at the start and at the endingof each, so crowded, passing day,the way it was with lovely Dee.For at such times I see her clearher timeless, ageless smile can stem my mostly withheld tears, can soothe the quickly passing yearswith words that only I can hear.
She’ll not grow old as I grow old; and she is in my waking thoughts,my sleeping dreams: how’s that?Who is to tell, who is to understandwhy you can or cannot holdthe fleeting shadow of love’s lifeor rays of sunshine in your hand?For her, decaying time’s no morebut I will always know just how it was: the way it was, with her, before.
Bryan IslipApril 17 2014
From the sublime to the prosaic, my cards and booklets and prints, etc, do well this year. And my 2015 calendar is particularly in demand. Dee didn't want me to go through the stress of creating and selling another calendar. It's the only one of my products with an automatic sell-by date. What doesn't sell you throw away. Gut-wrenching! But in making it a new 'desktop' format instead of my customary wall hanger I figure it's sufficiently different for her and me not to worry. So I won't. Just move on with the selling.
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