Goodbye 2021

Goodbye 2021

“To live In lives we leave behind, is not to die”
Judith Baxter, Blogger, Sister, Aunt and friend
1938 –

Now in 2022 I can look back on 2021 and say Goodbye. It was not a good year for our family.  During the year, we lost two of our members.

Early in the year my niece succumbed to some underlying health problems complicated by Covid.  She wasn’t particularly old or young, the ages we were informed were most at risk.  In fact, she would have been 60 later that year.  She was a special niece to me.  We referred to each other as FN and FA – favourite niece and favourite aunt.

We hadn’t lived in the same country since she was a very young child, but we had this special relationship that was always there and always obvious.  Earlier we connected by post or phone and then heavens above, we got the internet. We met only on my infrequent visits to London.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t be there for her wedding, but I celebrated the day with her from far away.  And then one day I heard she was ill, then she was in hospital, and then, she was dead.

At the time her mother was suffering from Covid and so her brother and sister kept the details of the illness as it progressed, from my sister.

Of course, because of the deadly Covid, I couldn’t travel to be with my sister at this dreadful time and had to comfort myself with a video of the funeral ceremony.

If you have known me through my blogs, you will know that I post often about my sisters; one in London and one in Los Angeles. Well, later in the year my elder sister, the one in Los Angeles, had a stroke nd died.  She never recovered consciousness.  My sister and her daughter had no relations in America and her daughter was left alone to make the decision to turn off life support. Again, I wasn’t able to be with her and all the support I could offer was over the phone.  We talked, we cried, we laughed together, and eventually said goodbye to my big sister.

I was very close to this sister being that there was only 14 months between us.  In fact, we had that special relationship shared by twins and remarked upon by our family doctor who thought it very strange   She it was who had swollen legs during my first pregnancy.  A few years later I was woken in the night with awful pains.  I advised my DYS (Dashing Young Scotsman) that I felt as if I had just given birth.  The following day I had a call from Mother to tell me that my sister had given birth to a daughter.
There were other such occasions, some too personal to share and others too silly.  We could finish each other’s sentences; we knew what one of us was going to say even if the question started “Do you remember..” 

And today I was thinking of a special time we had together several years ago (could it really be ten years?).  We spent five weeks driving around California.  She had always taken us to places that tourists , don’t see,and on this trip I saw out of the way missions, small villages,the Danish city of Salvang, and on one outstanding day – The Big Yellow House in Summerland.  Today, I found the blogpost I wrote way back in 2012 on that visit. 

The last time all three sisters were together was following Mother’s death.  We had both gone ‘home’ for the funeral.  A sad time but in some ways a happy time.  Father could have his three girls together just once more, and we could laugh and exchange our memories of growing up in a home full of love and laughter and enjoy ourselves as we had when young.

Christine, the eldest on Mother’s right, Marianne, the baby on her lap and me on her left.

Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond gains on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain, I am th gentle autumn rain….
Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die.
Mary Elizabeth Frye, American housewife and florist
1905 – 2004

JB January 7, 2022

Advertisement

Six Word Saturday

 

Lest we forget. ANZAC Day 2020

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We Will Remember Them.”
LAWRENCE BINYON 1869-1943,
English poet, dramatist and art scholar.

I have written about ANZAC Day most years since I started blogging in 2011.

April 25 is a special day here in New Zealand and Australia. celebrating,  commemorating, and remembering all those who have fought, suffered and died in all wars. In both countries, it is a Public Holiday. Services of Remembrance are held throughout both lands. And on this day in Gallipoli in Turkey, those brave souls who suffered and the many who died there are also remembered by the laying of wreaths at the Gallipoli Memorial.

On April 25, 1915, thousands of young men, far from their homes, stormed the beaches on the Gallipoli Peninsula in what is now Turkey.

For eight long months, New Zealand troops, alongside those from Australia, Great Britain and Ireland, France, India, and Newfoundland battled harsh conditions and Ottoman forces desperately fighting to protect their homeland.

But this year during the Covid-19 pandemic all public commemorations have been cancelled. No poppies were sold but some of us had those from an earlier year and we wore them, and many homemade poppies have been seen this year.

The Prime Minister suggested that as we can’t go to the dawn services at war memorials people should stand at their gates or front doors at dawn in memory of the fallen.

A very different ANZAC Day but we will not forget.

 

Mary Oliver

“maybe death
isn’t darkness, after all,
but so much light
wrapping itself around us–”
Mary Oliver 1935-2019

Those of you who have been following my ramblings these past years, know that Mary Oliver has been a favourite poet of mine for so long.

Many of her quotes grace the pages of my blog posts and may I say, that indeed she did add grace to the pages.

So rest in peace Mary after a life well lived. You will now never know the new readers who find your poems from whatever source, nor will you ever know how much your words affected this elderly woman far away in New Zealand.

Read the New York Times obituary here.

And now, Goodbye Mary. May you rest in peace with your dearly beloved  Molly Malone Cook.

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

Spring Bulbs

If you have read any of my posts recently you will know that we are having a particularly wet and windy Spring here in New Zealand.  We have one beautiful Spring day followed by three of the other kind.

But the Spring bulbs are in bloom and in my garden, there are a couple that are really special.

Last year, in the week before my accident, I went to the funeral of a  close friend.  If a funeral can be described as happy this one was.

People recounted memories and tales of fun shared with the deceased.  Then, just before the coffin was taken out of the chapel to the sound of “Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye” we were told to take a couple of bulbs from the box at the rear so that next year when the Spring came, we would all remember Jilly.   And that is what has happened this year.

 

Isn’t that a lovely thought.  I have suggested to my daughter that they do something like that so that my friends may remember me.  Oh no, I don’t plan to die for many years yet, but just saying…

“Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye 
Cheerio, here I go, on my way
Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye
Not a tear, but a cheer, make it gay
Give me a smile I can keep all the while
In my heart, while I’m away
‘Till we meet once again, you and I
Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye”.

And of course, having thought back to that time I am again thinking of the two men in my life, both of whom are now gone but both of whom are remembered always.

 

Grief Revisited

Like a thief in the night
Grief slinks silently back into my life
Disturbing the peace I have fought so hard for
It is like a fractious child demanding attention
And as the mother with her child, I give in
And am taken back to the beginning
When days were so long and nights even longer.
When I thought there was no way out of this slough of despair
And I am once again immobilised by it.
But I have been here before
Many times since that April night
And I know I can climb out
And once again put grief back where it belongs
Until the next time.
Judith Baxter, Mother, Grandmother, Sister, Blogger and Friend

Yesterday I had a long talk with a neighbour,  His partner of 15 years literally dropped dead in a restaurant a couple of weeks ago.  He had suffered from heart problems since an early age and apparently had an enlarged heart.  The death was quick and painless for which my neighbour was very thankful.

Lake Tekapo where Natu died

Drew, the neighbour, put the link to the video of the funeral on my laptop and I heard him singing. Drew is an Opera singer and to hear him sing If You Go Away to the love of his life brought tears to my eyes.  I have heard many singers sing this song, but none with the feeling of Drew.

And then I went off to the Hospice for a few hours.  Here again, I was faced with death, but they were all expected deaths, none so sudden as Natu’s.

So of course, all this and particularly the Hospice brought back that day in 2015 when my Late Love, The Architect, died.

But today is another day.  Nothing changes; the grief for both of my loves lies just below the surface, ready to spring to life at any time.  But I am stronger than I was and can face the days without either of my loves.

“Where you used to be there, is a hole in the world,
which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime
and falling into at night.
I miss you like hell.”
Edna StVincent Millay.

Thanks for reading.  Today I am back to being my usual cheerful self.  As we say “PollyAnna is alive and well and living in Wellington, New Zealand.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Don’t Cry At Funerals

I suppose it is because I was at a funeral yesterday and I was thinking of death and funerals, when this came to me in the shower this morning.  Real stream of consciousness writing.

*******

“I don’t cry at funerals,” she said to herself.  But she must have spoken it aloud as her son gently squeezed her shoulder in comfort.

It seemed that she had been to so many funerals.  She had seen friends some buried and others taken off to the crematorium.  Her young husband had died several years ago and though she had loved him, she didn’t cry even at his funeral.

But here she was watching the young men of the family lift her Grandmother’s casket and walk it out of the church.  And here she was crying.

She thought of that wonderful old lady.  She had been there for her since her mother had been taken away to hospital screaming about ghosts and terrors.  It was she who had taken the young girl into her home.  She was not really the Grandmother; just an older, caring neighbour who saw that the young girl had nobody to care for her.  She told the Social Services people that she was the grandmother.  And they, being overloaded with work and too many children to be cared for, accepted that she was whom she said she was.

The peace and quiet, the loving and caring of this new life totally enveloped the young girl so that memories of her mother, the noise and constant barrage of voices as her mother argued with unknown and unseen imaginary people began to fade and she wished/hoped she could live with Grandmother forever.

She had never known her mother’s family nor indeed her father’s.  There had just been the two of them for as long as she could remember.  And for a long time, all was well.  But then her mother started to abuse people in the street and shops where they bought their groceries. She had constant usually abusive, conversations with imaginary foes often in the early hours of the morning.

For several years, the girl hated going to bed knowing that in a few hours the noise would start and her mother would end up screaming.  And often she would awaken to find her mother standing over her yelling at her.

As her mother became worse, she couldn’t concentrate and found herself avoiding school as she stayed home to be with her mother.  Many times, her mother didn’t recognise her and would abuse her.  The final straw was when her mother picked up a kitchen knife and threatened to remove the girl’s tongue so that she wouldn’t argue with her anymore.

In total fright, the young girl fled to the house next door.  It was very early in the morning but the older woman was up having heard the noise, the screaming, and shouting. She took the young girl into her arms and sat her down in a comfortable chair while she called for an ambulance.  And from that time she had lived with Grandma.

But now, so many years later, she was at Grandma’s funeral.  And she wept openly as the coffin passed her in the church.  “Goodbye Grandma, ” she said “Thank you for loving me for so long.  I shall miss you.”

There is no end.  There is no beginning.
There is only the infinite passion of life.
Frederico Fellini.

Note – There’s a review of a new book  I received from my daughter.  It’s The Ice Beneath Her by Camilla Grebe.  Set in Stockholm it’s a must read.  Click here to read it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

……

 

The Streets of London

“So how can you tell me you’re lonely,
And say for you that the sun don’t shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I’ll show you something to make you change your mind “

This is the chorus from Ralph McTell’s song The Streets of London”.  

This is one of those songs that remind us just how lucky we are.  Oh, we all have something about which to complain but unless one is battling a life-threatening or terminating illness, put alongside those who are homeless and without any hope that things will improve, they really are minor.

If you follow my blog you will know that, until I came to live with my partner (the Architect), Thursday was always Mary Potter Hospice day.  Once a week I volunteered and helped serve lunch to the patients or should we now call them clients?

All these patients were battling terminal illness but in the years that I volunteered there,  I only met one person who was rude and ungrateful for the care he was receiving from the dedicated staff.  Of course, it was understood by everyone why he was like this at the time.  And his charming wife told us that he was never rude before coming into the Hospice.  Apparently, he was a gregarious, lovely fellow who was finding it difficult to come to terms with what was happening to him.

And then recently, I experienced the other side of the service the hospice offers.  My partner, dying from a brain tumour, was transferred to Te Omanga Hospice close to where we live.  And what an amazing place that it.  The love, care and attention showered upon us both was absolutely unbelievable.  Nothing was too much trouble for any of the staff.  Cups of tea in the early hours of the morning; a friendly ear to listen when it all became too much for me; food brought to me even though I didn’t want to eat and in all an outpouring of love to help me when the inevitable time came for the Architect to leave this world. And when that day came, the love was showered on our families.

So if today in your travels, you come across an abrupt, grumpy person, give them a smile.  We don’t know what demons they are battling in their lives and maybe a smile will help them.

“If you’re reading this…
Congratulations, you’re alive.
If that’s not something to smile about,
then I don’t know what is.”
― Chad Sugg, –  Monsters Under Your Head

The Inevitable

“There is a land of the living
and a land of the dead,
And the bridge is love.”
from “The Bridge of San Luis Rey” by Thornton Wilder

Rip Jon Alastair Craig
1941 – 2015

It doesn’t seem possible that just 8 weeks ago we were enjoying life and making plans for another trip. But now, what became inevitable, has happened.
After only one round of chemotherapy, it became apparent that this invader in the Architect’s head was stronger than any modern medicine.  My darling lived for only another five weeks.
Surprisingly, he was in no pain except at the very end. The consultants and staff at Wellington Regional Hospital were fantastic. Initially, the consultants thought that this could be fought with large doses of chemotherapy, but it became apparent after only one round that this was not to be.  So that he was not alone I slept at the hospital in his room with him for the 17 nights leading up to the transfer to the hospice.
The last 10 days of his life were spent at Te Omanga Hospice close to home.  What a lovely place, set in beautiful calm grounds and staffed by such an amazing, caring, loving group of people.  Again I stayed with him and I too was cared for by this incredible group of people. I cannot thank them enough: Then quietly and peacefully on Sunday, August 16 the Magic Carpet Ride came to an abrupt end. My second love died.
We had only two years together, but what a fabulous two years.  Thank you thank you for sharing this time with me my love.

“To live in lives you leave behind, is not to die.”
Judith Baxter, Blogger & friend 1938 –

Writing 101: Serially Lost

Day 4 and the challenge is – Write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life, and isn’t any more. and Today’s twist: Make today’s post the first in a three-post series.

I have tried writing a serial before.  It was about two women and their hats and their adventures.  I really enjoyed that.  But now we are asked to write about a loss and then to make this the first in a three-post series,

So what to write about?  Apart from the great loss in my life, the next loss was that of my darling companion Miss Lotte. It was a beautiful summer day; I had just had lunch and was sitting down to a cup of tea and a new magazine when I heard this horrendous sound of someone in great pain.  I looked around and found my darling little Tibetan spaniel writhing on the ground.  She had been lying in the sun and once before she had been affected by the heat.  At that time the vet told me to pick her up and speak to her quietly so she would know all was well.  I did that but I could see we were in great trouble.  So I wrapped her in her blanket and drove to my vet.  Apparently, she was very near death – he didn’t know if she had eaten anything poisonous, unlikely as she was confined to our garden, or whether she had suffered a heart attack.

I left Miss Lotte at the vets and spent a miserable afternoon without my loving companion.  But I was allowed to pick her up some hours later.  She was to be kept quiet, no walks just rest and hopefully, all would be well.

Lotte sleeping after her trip to the vets.

Unfortunately, there was no happy ending for Lotte and me.  She had to be put to sleep a few days later,  She suffered another major heart attack one evening and I had to take her to the emergency vet, where I was told that the best thing I could do for my darling was to let her go.  How sad that was.  But although she had a very short life it had been a happy and full life with me, my friends and grandsons who all loved her.

So I said goodbye to my friend.  And farewelled her with the words I used when my husband died – “Soar high; Fly free; Breathe easy”.

Lotte Baxter,
Loving friend, faithful companion
2006-2013  RIP

 

 

 

 

 

 

…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Hard Decision

Lotte Baxter
Loving friend; Faithful companion
2006-2013
RIP

My darling, beautiful little girl was gently put to sleep late last night.  Her big, brave heart could no longer keep her alive; it was almost stopped.  And so I made the very hard decision to let her go.

I held her as the vet injected her, told her how much I loved her and those beautiful eyes looked at me one last time then she quietly slipped away.

Now through my tears, I console myself with the fact that though she had only a short life, she had a happy one.

So now my love using the same words I used on  my late husband’s memorial cards – “Soar High; Fly free; Breathe easy”

So goodbye and thank you for sharing your life with me.
You will be greatly missed my special friend.