Doer of good

Dear Friend (you know who you are!), 

Doer of good remorselessly. 

Placing wreaths on old graves. 

Remembering lost ones over decades. 

Tidying and cleaning their resting places in honour of the love that lives still. 

Visiting lonely living elderly relatives and nurturing them with that life-affirming connection. 

I care, you matter, these regular long trips, crisscrossing the country affirm. 

Keeping friends, tight, through stress, divorce, separation, and loss of loved ones. 

Making sure the safety net of your love and concern is strengthened with additional knots of love. 

Never failing in loyalty, even when brought to the knees by the suicide of dear ones. 

The devastation of losing dear ones by their own hand strikes that huge heart to its core. 

But keeping that love alive despite the loss, the pain and absence.  

Remembering and holding their spirit in gentle arms of understanding and compassion.  

Dropping everything and giving anything to help a friend in real need. 

Providing constant help of finance, time, and love. 

Not buckling in the face of death but tightening the armour of love and heading anywhere for those you hold dear. 

"The betterment of the world can be accomplished through pure and goodly deeds and through commendable and seemly conduct. "

Baha'i Writings

A Constant Friend

 

Dear Del,

You have been my childhood companion in anorak and swimsuit holidays in the rain. 

A constant friend on those first exhilarating trips abroad as teenagers. 

Wherever I’ve been, in good times and bad you’ve been there. 

Making the effort to visit, call or write. 

Using every means to bridge the distance that life at times creates. 

You’ve always been generous and kind. 

I remember on my 50th birthday you took to took me to my first-ever spa experience and I sucked up the novelty of being pampered head to toe. 

I treasure a photo of us in our teens dancing together in the ankle-deep waves of the Med laughing and having the time of our lives. 

Most of all I remember standing at a loved one’s grave and feeling as if my heart was being lowered into a deep dark hole. 

I cried my pain and my loss. 

And across the grave, among the many in the crowded graveyard, I saw my pain reflected clearly in your eyes.

Concern love, sympathy, and empathy were all there. 

During my childhood, in turbulent adolescence and challenging adulthood, you have ever been at my side a loyal friend to face the joy and the shadows. 

I will ever remember that both at the happiest of times and the unspeakable moments you were there, really there for me.  

Thanks for reminding me what friendship and family mean.

with love from your cousin

Colette

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.

87 year old - fish fantasy

Joyce reciting her fish poem, such a treat meeting up with my writing buddies, from years ago, in Northern Ireland this summer.  What a lovely bunch to be creative and have fun with.

Old Drum And Loyality

I read this piece to my first year animal management course in college each year and without fail it created an emotional reaction.  It helps that the kids are animal lovers but I reckon most people love the sentiments.  Hope you enjoy it!  The picture shows  a statue to Old Drum in Warrensburg, USA.

Senator Vest's "Tribute to the Dog"

It is strange how tenaciously popular memory clings to the bits of eloquence men have uttered, long after their deeds and most of their recorded thoughts are forgotten, or but indifferently remembered. However, whenever and as long as the name of the late Senator George Graham Vest of Missouri is mentioned it will always be associated with his love for a dog.
Many years ago, in 1869, Senator Vest represented in a lawsuit, a plaintiff whose dog "Old Drum" had been wilfully and wantonly shot by a neighbour. The defendant virtually admitted the shooting, but questioned to the jury the $150 value plaintiff attributed to this mere animal. To give his closing argument, George Vest rose from his chair, scowling, mute, his eyes burning from under the slash of brow tangled as a grape vine. Then he stepped sideways, hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets, his gold watch fob hanging motionless, it was that heavy. He looked, someone remembered afterwards, taller than his actual 5 feet 6 inches, and began in a quiet voice to deliver an extemporaneous oration. It was quite brief, less than 400 words:
"Gentlemen of the jury: the best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his worst enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it the most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honour when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.
The one absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous... is his dog.
Gentlemen of the Jury: a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death."
The jury deliberated less than two minutes then erupted in joint pathos and triumph. The record becomes quite sketchy here, but some in attendance say the plaintiff who had been asking $150, was awarded $500 by the jury. Little does that matter. The case was eventually appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which refused to hear it.