Remembering Mary
When an old friend dies suddenly it's like winter descending on a
flowering cherry tree while the bright leaves of Autumn cling on
forlornly like words unsaid. We can never be ready for it
... not ever. There will always be more we could and
would have shared if only there had been more
time.
Mary and I first came to know each other well when we were thirteen years old ... two singers travelling with a large, already well-established company. We were disciplined to maintain the proper comportment of young ladies whenever the team was on show but we were adolescents then and the corset of school, musical training; rehearsals; the tension of performance on a glittering stage simply made the pop and fizz of youth all the more exhilerating whenever we were let loose to roam a strange town in the morning - a golden mile; a pier; a tyrolean garden after dark when the show was over.
Our youth was spent on a carousel of achievement, travel, adventure and so much fun that carried us swiftly into womanhood and along the pathways of life that young women choose to take: marriage and motherhood for most, professional careers for others. Through the years we have remained in touch; gathering for re-unions as often as possible and on special anniversaries been joined by old friends from abroad. We have seen each other's children born and watched them grow, celebrated each other's triumphs and comforted each other's pain.
Those friends have remained the truest anyone could wish for. We share the best of memories and have many yet to make. Mary left before the party was over and we shall miss her.
Mary and I first came to know each other well when we were thirteen years old ... two singers travelling with a large, already well-established company. We were disciplined to maintain the proper comportment of young ladies whenever the team was on show but we were adolescents then and the corset of school, musical training; rehearsals; the tension of performance on a glittering stage simply made the pop and fizz of youth all the more exhilerating whenever we were let loose to roam a strange town in the morning - a golden mile; a pier; a tyrolean garden after dark when the show was over.
Our youth was spent on a carousel of achievement, travel, adventure and so much fun that carried us swiftly into womanhood and along the pathways of life that young women choose to take: marriage and motherhood for most, professional careers for others. Through the years we have remained in touch; gathering for re-unions as often as possible and on special anniversaries been joined by old friends from abroad. We have seen each other's children born and watched them grow, celebrated each other's triumphs and comforted each other's pain.
Those friends have remained the truest anyone could wish for. We share the best of memories and have many yet to make. Mary left before the party was over and we shall miss her.
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29 Comments
Seems to me you've done her proud — then and now.
I'm sorry I do keep rousing your curiosity with snippets, but to tell my part in what was a long story would, I'm afraid identify me and breach the privacy of many others. I know there are Clouders who understand this.
Thank you so much for being my new friends.
Make sure you're on the receiving end of a hug yourself.
Tony, I really have to respond to your comments on the symbolism of my photograph. Your perception is extraordinary but then ... you have the eyes and the heart of a poet! I was moved to use this picture in my tribute to Mary because of the false image of Nature's death in the winter scene; because of the sadness of an empty garden bench which in Spring/Summertime would be a focus of life; because of the golden leaves still clinging to an ornamental cherry tree taken by surprise when Winter came unusually early in 2010 to my soft and so cossetted Southern clime.
I quite overlooked what you saw in the the evergreen tree dominating the foreground and now that you've pointed it out to me I'm wondering: "How could I possibly have missed the power of that?!" Every morning I fill my kettle while contemplating the beauty of that evergreen tree - a eucalyptus - in all its seasons. It screens me from an otherwise uninspiring view. When I can't sleep at night because of Sou'westerly gales driving in from the Atlantic - battering raindrops like pea-beach against my bedroom window - I wander into the kitchen to take heart from the whippy fortitude of that eucalyptus tree, lit up by security lights, thrashing against but never (so far) succumbing to elemental forces.
Thanks to you, Tony, I shall never again contemplate the eucalyptus tree without being reminded of the evergreen nature of life; of Mary and all those I have loved and lost before.
Yes, I am a passionate being moved to tears in remembrance of those I've loved and lost. It's human. I can't write poetry as you do but I like to think that shared emotion is a special quality of our species.
Her-indoors often shakes her head at me when she sees me laughing while peeling potatos in the kitchen. She will ask what is so funny and I will reply "Watson" or "Davis" or some other long lost mate I shared a buffoonery with. It is a true gift when the memories of good times overwhelm the grief of loss when times with old friends are recalled.
You are blessed with it.
Best,
Prop
Mockingbird, I will look at your "Tonight I Weep". Your title would have fit this blog of mine for I was weeping as I wrote.
Tony, sorry you didn't pick up on my response to you at the time. Maybe I should've posted it on your wall. Sadly (tragically, even) my beautiful eucalyptus is no more because a neighbour hated its leaves falling on her garden. It didn't shed its leaves all in one go as the cherry tree does, but she likened its all-year-round little sheddings to the drip of Chinese torture! :-(
So ... it was goodbye to another old friend for me and hello to a neighbour's ugly garden which I try to look at as little as possible while filling my kettle.
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