Dear David

A good heart,

kindness embossed throughout,

Expressed in word and deed.

He stood upright, tall and regal.

With a mind clear and agile.

An excellent honest Inspector of police.

He proved himself as one of integrity

in the difficult days of The Troubles

when shifting sands caused better men to stumble.

Perhaps his stability came from his warm faith

working as a Gideon to provide all he could

with what was his mandate - the Bible.

His unusual quiet humility was accompanied

by a deep devotion to his wife.

He met her as a young constable on his bike.

Entering the village shop he heard the bell above the door

and then he saw her!

It was love at first sight.

Instant, total and devoted.

Not some fleeting fancy

but a love that grew over many decades

into over a half-century like a mighty oak.

As once we walked past a neighbour’s home

eighty-year-old David shivered in sympathy.

The owner was recently widowed

David said the thought of him ever losing his own wife

made his heart ache in horror.

But the years brought dementia to his door.

It was hard to see words take flight from his mind.

That agile, fluid, articulate mind began to stumble.

Making a sentence an impossible hurdle.

When he fell down his staircase

and was left with huge black bruises on his chest

he struggled to explain what had happened.

But in trying to express his gratitude

in surviving the bad fall

he raised a finger pointing above

and managed to convey his gratitude

to the "Big Guy" upstairs.

He had three loves.

His wife his Faith and his music.

Long after conversation stopped completely

he could sing the old songs of Ireland

in a beautiful tone that stirred the spirits.

Then that too stopped

and there was nothing

that was not taken from him. 

I will not dwell on this final bereft phase.

Who knows why tests rain down on mighty souls?

Is it perhaps our test not theirs?

Who knows?

But this week he threw off this fleeting shadow of a world.

I like to think of him striding out on sunlight fields.

Full of his old vigour of mind

surrounded by all his great loves.

I am grateful for the fragrance of his existence

that lingers in my mind

the citrus tone that ever cleanses the senses.