Seeing Dee

Today is November28th. At 13.41 hours tomorrow, one year ago, Delia's laboured breathing stopped for ever. I've had some beautiful messages this week. No surprise. I don't know and cannot define what is a 'special person' except by indirect allusion. That is, through the words and the eyes of those with whom she came into contact. Famous she was not; fame would have frightened her for she was a one on one person, even amongst a crowd of one on ones. But all the evidence is that Delia Mary was indeed that special person.

Whilst we can only live in the present we do so, for better or for worse, on the cushion of the past . This poem is published in today's Gairloch and District Times ...



Seeing Dee
I see her still, and willso long as I have seeing eyes aliveto the hills we walked,with those beloved dogs.So many, many lovely days;so many, many trackless ways.The hills are winter muted now,their lovely colours sombreas if in respect or tribute to she who, leaving me alone,embarked on that adventurethat all that lives must know,this harder, emptier year ago.
I see her still, and willso long as I have seeing eyes aliveto the stony, bouldery shoresor riverside woodswhere we would each dayin all weathers find a seat to eat our picnic lunchoften in silence, contentto watch the play of light, oft-times the drift of rain or snowon hill or moving water, smile atthe play of otters, divers, others,listening to the crying of the gulls.
I see her still, and willso long as I have seeing eyes aliveto the crystal seas of Wester-Rosscold, clear, summertime blue,‘remote’, where she would take off her clothes and, breathless,slip nymph-like in to swim,framed by deep, dark-waving weeds,laughing at me, at the cold; or for the simple joy of it, lithe mermaid in a perfect zone,the one, forever gonethat we had made our own.
Bryan Islip(for Delia, 04.12.1944 - 29.11.2013)