Thanks Pipp, My coffee mate has rallied, did I tell you? I forget... I called the doc - he'd forgotten o take his medications... allowable at that age I guess! The week since has been chaos! Rosie will be here in ten days... I can't wait! I hope you are seeing the light at the end of your book - hugs xxx
Did I quote Virginia Woolf? I don't remember, but I too am guilty of not having read anything other than quotes recently Amy Lynn and now you have planted a burning desire! 🙏🏼
I haven’t read such an exquisite sentence about letting go as this: “Not simply ageing but hurtling at a critical unstoppable, perfidious pace towards whatever reverence awaits him, his life hangs before him in all the nuances it has taken to create, they are no longer tangible threads of days, they are dispersing, waiting in that next place for him to gather up in death.” To encounter “perfidious” and “reverence” in the same breath, yes. Yes, that’s what being with a dying loved one feels exactly like. “No longer tangible threads of days” — that feeling of unraveling, unweaving. 💔
Julie that is high praise coming from you and hugely appreciated , especially as the sentence took me quite a few edits to write and read back as I wanted to not only hear it but feel it - thank you so much. I remember you writing about your father in words that touched me also🙏🏼
Such a beautiful piece, capturing the soundscape, lightscape, and soulscape, the feathered and furry scapes, the emotional and terrestrial landscapes of spring marching around the hill and through life. bientôt is such a magical word
Oh Veronika thank you, there has been much shuffling and wringing of hands and heart over all those scapes in this last week or two, somehow they have touched on the emotional far more deeply than I imagined. Perhaps fatigue has played a too visible role... Bientôt is a word spoken from my tongue often, 'bientôt les vacances', 'bientôt de la tranquilitée' it always feels so filled with hope... 🤍
Oh Dearest Susie. I feel your grief regarding your dear friend, wanting to hold onto moments with him before his Spirit is released into his next and final journey... home! You have been such a wonderful loving, caring friend to him all these part years and I know he cherishes you, words that cannot fully express the depth, width and breadth. You've both been blessed! I cry for you and Roger not tears of sadness but joy because you hold the greatest gift of God... pure unselfish love. Please give him a hug and a kiss for me, know that you are both in my prayers. God Bless you for you unwavering loyalty, love and light, a shining beacon to those who have the privilege of knowing you dearest Sister. L & L forever... xoxo
Hello darling, my hugest love and thanks for your words of support and kindness, I am trying not to feel exhausted but I have been trying to give every spare hour I have to ensure what I thought were last days would be beautiful days… but yesterday I called the Dr I was so worried again and today he is like a new man! He has not been taking his medication, or rather he has been forgetting so a nurse has been organised to ensure that he doesn’t! A relief… so enormous I cried! But, there is no escaping his age and his fragile state, e are both warned.
Sending love always sweet soul, I will call you as soon as I have an evening free of school work, insurance claims and debilitating fatigue - missing you madly ♥️xx
With thanks from a lighter heart today Philip, it seems one must remember medication when medication is prescribed. Ten years added… perhaps? And yes, bientôt she said indeed - counting down.
May the days be kind and filled with spring sounds my friend.
The way you describe your cutting board reads like a meditation, an altar, in the middle of your life, Susie. Your care for your friend, your family and your hill home is like a living prayer. Thank you for sending all this beauty. Peace and strength to you.
Ann it almost is an altar. It is an old relic of a thing, dependable in its solidity and as enduring as the days. It holds in its timbers (maple and beech) every secret, every hope and fear I have known and undoubtedly many more before me. It is the one item of my possessions I would always try to save if the necessity arose. Thank you so much for reading the feeling in-between. xx
Your fading friend and the attentive way you hold his dissolving reminds me of my own mom, also now in a more rapid decline (expansion is maybe a better word?) She is becoming everything. Her movements slowing to integrate into all movements, her breath neither shallow nor deep, but gossamer and connected to everything. Though her eyes are still bright and twinkling as ever.
Thank you for sharing your land’s unfurling. I feel your own in each quiet turn of phrase. 🙏
Kimberly, I thought of you and your mom when I wrote this... If my old friend was less gracious in his decline, my caring would be perhaps just another part of my day, it would not touch on emotion or love or sadness. I find it increasingly hard to watch him fade, not simply because he is so dear to me but because there are so few truly strong but good people like him left. I wish I had time to write his memoire, I wish I could show the world what survival is really like.
I send you love and strength for near or far days to come, that above all there will be peace in your moms becoming. xx
Another enchanting piece of writing that provides me with a little sip of nature that I don't get enough of in my daily life. I absolutely love the photograph of your hands and the passage about the butcher's block scarred with memories of all the meals you've prepared. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. That must be hard to witness every day.
Thank you Ben, That old butchers block has been one of my life's stays over the years... as it probably was for many others before me - it holds unimaginable secrets.
It is always hard to watch a person fade into his or her last days, harder still when that person is honest and good to the bone. My old friend has rallied, his days are numbered but they are more numerous than I feared - a case of memory loss and missed meds!
I wish I could send you a daily dose of hill air and nature my friend... 🍃
This especially: "At midday on Saturday, at the exact moment when the moon glides silently over the sun my daughter calls. It is a few seconds before I can speak..." I feel that intensely. How valuable that you did pause allowing the moment to be what it was, for your daughter to sense that too. The grief and longing. ❤️
By the way... what graceful creative hands you have. 😊❤️
Jo, I have a feeling that photo did them much justice! I used to have very graceful hands, the sort one imagines playing a piano or a harp, now though they are gnarled, covered in sunspots and life scarred (all those damn brambles) but they do still love to create, especially good food!
A hug to you beautiful, I hope the days are wrapping you in autumn gold. 💛xx
Swept with you in life and grief and longing the poetry you write in prose and the poetry in poems and prose you quote, I sway and stay with you, my dear.
Your story about your friend, and neighbor I presume, makes me think of the more and more frequent encounters we are having in the village with people who were maybe in their early 50s when we moved here 30 years ago at 35 and 41. My husband can never believe me when I do the math, not wanting to face up to the fact that our turn is coming sooner than we think.
Betty, I hear you - my husband and I have had the 'we must sort out our wills' talk this week... neither of us want to but these things have to be done, the numbers have been checked and double checked - its time!
A gruesome thought but better than the option I guess...
Your writing radiates your gracious soul. Thank you, my dear Susie, for sharing and giving. 🖤
With heartfelt thanks back to you dear Fotini for being here always ♥️x
🙏🏼 Susie 🌻
I hope your week is being gracious Darren 💚🍃
Beautiful, pictures and story. I hope the week is not sad, with your coffee partner, how wonderful you daughter's call lifts you
Thanks Pipp, My coffee mate has rallied, did I tell you? I forget... I called the doc - he'd forgotten o take his medications... allowable at that age I guess! The week since has been chaos! Rosie will be here in ten days... I can't wait! I hope you are seeing the light at the end of your book - hugs xxx
Oh wonderful to hear good news!! It must be nice to get him back and Rosie too- just the tonic for you, lovely
I think I may need something stronger than tonic by the time tomorrow is over! One day to go… I am absolutely ragged! xx
I think you deserve something to go with your tonic dearest Susie
This week, I have to agree Pipp! I am completely wiped out! 😵💫
I bet you are you work so hard!
Ahhhh, Virginia Woolf! I miss her writing so much! I am so guilty of not reading anything by her since college the FIRST time around. Tsk tsk on me.
Did I quote Virginia Woolf? I don't remember, but I too am guilty of not having read anything other than quotes recently Amy Lynn and now you have planted a burning desire! 🙏🏼
Cool 😎! I need to read Virginia Woolfe also.
Moving piece, Susie. Lyrical prose.
Heartfelt thanks Stephanie - I hope the week is treating you kindly 🙏🏼
I haven’t read such an exquisite sentence about letting go as this: “Not simply ageing but hurtling at a critical unstoppable, perfidious pace towards whatever reverence awaits him, his life hangs before him in all the nuances it has taken to create, they are no longer tangible threads of days, they are dispersing, waiting in that next place for him to gather up in death.” To encounter “perfidious” and “reverence” in the same breath, yes. Yes, that’s what being with a dying loved one feels exactly like. “No longer tangible threads of days” — that feeling of unraveling, unweaving. 💔
Julie that is high praise coming from you and hugely appreciated , especially as the sentence took me quite a few edits to write and read back as I wanted to not only hear it but feel it - thank you so much. I remember you writing about your father in words that touched me also🙏🏼
Such a beautiful piece, capturing the soundscape, lightscape, and soulscape, the feathered and furry scapes, the emotional and terrestrial landscapes of spring marching around the hill and through life. bientôt is such a magical word
Oh Veronika thank you, there has been much shuffling and wringing of hands and heart over all those scapes in this last week or two, somehow they have touched on the emotional far more deeply than I imagined. Perhaps fatigue has played a too visible role... Bientôt is a word spoken from my tongue often, 'bientôt les vacances', 'bientôt de la tranquilitée' it always feels so filled with hope... 🤍
Oh Dearest Susie. I feel your grief regarding your dear friend, wanting to hold onto moments with him before his Spirit is released into his next and final journey... home! You have been such a wonderful loving, caring friend to him all these part years and I know he cherishes you, words that cannot fully express the depth, width and breadth. You've both been blessed! I cry for you and Roger not tears of sadness but joy because you hold the greatest gift of God... pure unselfish love. Please give him a hug and a kiss for me, know that you are both in my prayers. God Bless you for you unwavering loyalty, love and light, a shining beacon to those who have the privilege of knowing you dearest Sister. L & L forever... xoxo
Hello darling, my hugest love and thanks for your words of support and kindness, I am trying not to feel exhausted but I have been trying to give every spare hour I have to ensure what I thought were last days would be beautiful days… but yesterday I called the Dr I was so worried again and today he is like a new man! He has not been taking his medication, or rather he has been forgetting so a nurse has been organised to ensure that he doesn’t! A relief… so enormous I cried! But, there is no escaping his age and his fragile state, e are both warned.
Sending love always sweet soul, I will call you as soon as I have an evening free of school work, insurance claims and debilitating fatigue - missing you madly ♥️xx
Grief supporting Heaven, the circling protection of the sun and moon... May your old friend hear you and be comforted. Bientot, she said.
With thanks from a lighter heart today Philip, it seems one must remember medication when medication is prescribed. Ten years added… perhaps? And yes, bientôt she said indeed - counting down.
May the days be kind and filled with spring sounds my friend.
Your attention to your friend, your storyweave. Gifts to all. Brilliant.
With warmest thanks Síodhna, some friends deserve attention to the very last, he is a gift to this world and will be for the next.
What a beautiful thing to say, and be.
The way you describe your cutting board reads like a meditation, an altar, in the middle of your life, Susie. Your care for your friend, your family and your hill home is like a living prayer. Thank you for sending all this beauty. Peace and strength to you.
Ann it almost is an altar. It is an old relic of a thing, dependable in its solidity and as enduring as the days. It holds in its timbers (maple and beech) every secret, every hope and fear I have known and undoubtedly many more before me. It is the one item of my possessions I would always try to save if the necessity arose. Thank you so much for reading the feeling in-between. xx
Your fading friend and the attentive way you hold his dissolving reminds me of my own mom, also now in a more rapid decline (expansion is maybe a better word?) She is becoming everything. Her movements slowing to integrate into all movements, her breath neither shallow nor deep, but gossamer and connected to everything. Though her eyes are still bright and twinkling as ever.
Thank you for sharing your land’s unfurling. I feel your own in each quiet turn of phrase. 🙏
Kimberly, I thought of you and your mom when I wrote this... If my old friend was less gracious in his decline, my caring would be perhaps just another part of my day, it would not touch on emotion or love or sadness. I find it increasingly hard to watch him fade, not simply because he is so dear to me but because there are so few truly strong but good people like him left. I wish I had time to write his memoire, I wish I could show the world what survival is really like.
I send you love and strength for near or far days to come, that above all there will be peace in your moms becoming. xx
Sigh. Your heart Susie. So. Very. Beautiful.
Another enchanting piece of writing that provides me with a little sip of nature that I don't get enough of in my daily life. I absolutely love the photograph of your hands and the passage about the butcher's block scarred with memories of all the meals you've prepared. I'm sorry to hear about your friend. That must be hard to witness every day.
Thank you Ben, That old butchers block has been one of my life's stays over the years... as it probably was for many others before me - it holds unimaginable secrets.
It is always hard to watch a person fade into his or her last days, harder still when that person is honest and good to the bone. My old friend has rallied, his days are numbered but they are more numerous than I feared - a case of memory loss and missed meds!
I wish I could send you a daily dose of hill air and nature my friend... 🍃
Oh Susie. So beautiful. Thank you.
This especially: "At midday on Saturday, at the exact moment when the moon glides silently over the sun my daughter calls. It is a few seconds before I can speak..." I feel that intensely. How valuable that you did pause allowing the moment to be what it was, for your daughter to sense that too. The grief and longing. ❤️
By the way... what graceful creative hands you have. 😊❤️
Jo, I have a feeling that photo did them much justice! I used to have very graceful hands, the sort one imagines playing a piano or a harp, now though they are gnarled, covered in sunspots and life scarred (all those damn brambles) but they do still love to create, especially good food!
A hug to you beautiful, I hope the days are wrapping you in autumn gold. 💛xx
Swept with you in life and grief and longing the poetry you write in prose and the poetry in poems and prose you quote, I sway and stay with you, my dear.
Mary you always make me feel my work is not in vain, bless you sweet soul - I hope the week is treating you to all kinds of beautiful! x
You are so worth reading ...
Your story about your friend, and neighbor I presume, makes me think of the more and more frequent encounters we are having in the village with people who were maybe in their early 50s when we moved here 30 years ago at 35 and 41. My husband can never believe me when I do the math, not wanting to face up to the fact that our turn is coming sooner than we think.
Betty, I hear you - my husband and I have had the 'we must sort out our wills' talk this week... neither of us want to but these things have to be done, the numbers have been checked and double checked - its time!
A gruesome thought but better than the option I guess...