Recently, a number of my friends have been having issues with aged parents – either illness, senility or death. This has never been a part of my life because both my parents unfortunately died when I was young. My mother had terrible cancer and died the year I turned seventeen. She was younger than I am now. My father lived longer, re-married and died aged seventy-two, now more than twenty years ago. So I have experienced illness and death at close range but nothing is so devastating as sudden death.
My daughter’s boyfriend was killed in a car crash. That was it. Just gone. She was overseas and came back the next day. This song played in the car as I drove to the airport to fetch her. Not a dirge at all but a song about lost love
Ohhhhhhh, no I can’t no I can’t
I can’t forget you
My whole world turns misty blue
I felt that as I drove – a kind of haze in front of me. But in it I could imagine him quite clearly, see his face and hear his voice, see them together and remember the very last time I saw him. It really is almost impossible to believe you’ll never see someone again. A life turned misty blue.
I think now far more often about my own parents. I can’t imagine them older yet I visualise them with my daughter, the grand-daughter they never knew, and perhaps even her children, my still-to-come grandchildren and their great-grandchildren. What I am most sorry about is not taking more notice of them when they were alive.
My parents were of pioneer stock in what was then Southern Rhodesia. My dad owned a gold mine and then a cattle ranch and through our early years he would tell stories about prospecting for gold, hunting, living in the bush, and running the farm. We heard about the buck he shot, the dogs he owned, we knew the names of all the cows he milked and the men who had worked for him over the years. They were superb stories but we took it for granted that would just always be there. No blogs then.
My mom was always in the background but at the same time, really important. She ran the house and grew the most amazing dahlias. She hand-made all our clothes and taught us to sew and bake. She was there for us when we went to school and came home and she and Dad sat talking together for hours in the evenings. I would like to think she was an equal partner in all he did. I’ll never know because I never asked.
I remember them both in the same haze. It’s just fainter.
And then again ... 