Carolyn Salter’s son Ben died in a plane crash at the age of 21. She has written a book of poems, and one is entitled “Two Years”. It starts,
“Can it be? Is it true? Two years have gone since we lost you.
Two years, when we couldn’t live for two hours.
Two winters, two summers, two seasons of flowers.
Two years, and the pain and the hurt are still there,
and always will be. Yet we share
the joy of having loved you …”
Two years since Ross left us. Two years, when yes, we couldn’t live for two hours. And yet, two winters, two summers, here we are, still not quite believing that he has gone.
I said to Don, what do you want to do on Wednesday, 19th May, it’s the anniversary. Do you want to come home, and we’ll look through photos, and we’ll play some music, and remember. Or do you want to go out for lunch somewhere and make it something special? or what. He just said, Don’t do anything, I just want you to come to the nursing home and sit with me.
So that is what I did.
Only, tonight, I tried to ring some good friends but got the engaged signal time after time, so instead I just put on some tracks of music — Geoffrey Gurrimal’s lament, Leonard Cohen’s Alexandra Leaving – and lit some candles and sat on the deck and looked at the lake in the moonlight. Ross would have thought that was a good way to spend a sad evening, I know; he was a great one for just sitting silently and drinking it all in.
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