December 3, 2014

 

 

I was given her ‘5 year Diary’

many decades after she died.

My name appeared quite often;

a tear came to my eye.

 

She wrote about her children;

all five were married then.

Some would visit daily,

and others, now and then.

 

But the thing so overwhelming,

I discovered as I read;

each one she thought of lovingly,

whilst lying in her bed.

 

It was her nightly ritual,

before switching off the light:

Sometimes she’d had ‘a good day’,

whilst other’s, were ‘just alright’.

 

But it was a spooky feeling

to re-live her hourly routine.

Especially on days I’d visited, and

‘hadn’t stayed long’: I felt so mean!

 

What I’d give to roll back time,

and sit with Gran that extra hour,

when I dashed in after school,

and watched her sieving flour.

 

And see Gramps in his armchair,

taking tobacco from his pouch.

His pipe was his great pleasure,

but had me rising from the couch.

 

As the smell from his old pipe,

would waft over past my nose.

He knew each time I did it,

the reason why I rose!

 

And he knew my exit imminent,

when the smoke caused me to cough.

I’d make up some weak excuse, like,

‘I have to walk the dog – I’m off.

 

After two and a half years in,

Gran’s diary entries all but stopped,

as Gramps went into hospital,

and her writing instinct dropped.

 

The saddest page of the diary

is when she put ‘My lad has gone’.

They’d been together for sixty years;

she had no strength to carry on.

 

She said ‘I’ve never missed his birthday’,

‘and I’m not missing it today’.

And after breakfast, without warning,

she too, peacefully passed away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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