(October 2024).

Most of what I know about you is from the lens of story telling
The rest of what I know I can only tell in stories.

You had a liveliness about you I suppose, one that swatted at my knee with compassionate flicks of the wrist or laughed presently about past reflections on naive questions I poked towards you.
You told us you were not doing so well and, again perhaps it’s my naivety but, I was assured by the tone it was delivered in. Like how someone takes control of a situation through a particularly honest perspective on it (it implies there’s more time before the parentheses close; “I am not doing so well, though because i acknowledge it i am therefore addressing it.”…) I wasn’t worried for you, I think you didn’t want me to. So I believe you also had a very great certainty to you, a comforting presence.
Your family must all know this.
My Dad asked those silly questions like which channels on the TV you’re receiving and to be fair to him it was on and it had your divided attention. I asked those even sillier questions like where did you live at this time, and oh so what was running this News Agents like and where is she now, your daughter? In truth my parents only ever told some handful of your stories, and I can’t really even apologise for something like that, of which I’m sorry.
It must be okay,
because with conscientiousness you made it clear
to reiterate
you knew everything about me.

Those were kind words. They gave me an idea of my Father behind all the thick deflections and idle-fineness. I think that peace was felt by all 3 of us in that moment. I feel that I grew some inches closer to your nephew because of it.

A nurse came with a dilemma for your dinner and you opted for toast ‘really slathered in jam’ as quite a nice compromise. Maybe reflecting the mood we’d all found ourselves.

Were you preparing for death or were you just waiting, passing time?

We eventually finished our tea mugs and anecdotes and your sweetened toast came back without a corner spared and I guess I already knew it was the nature of my Father to be averse of family intimacies, because I also felt the pull when the nurse carrying that stacked plate gave some kind of unspoken signal for us to think it was nearing time to vacate.

Return Home – something I know that you longed for despite the smiles and good posture and perception I observed of your being self-assured. My Dad left us together (kitchen, to give back the crockery).

I was quite unsure on what to say but I knew that I wanted you to feel the fact I came. That I was the one who pushed and probed and found out where it was that you stayed and demanded that the next evening we could I wanted to meet you that very day. But it’s my naivity again because I don’t think any of it mattered. The fact we were entirely estranged, that you lived a whole lifetime before seeing my face, that we had the same surname and loved the same persons and

You grabbed my hand
I held yours able to feel the tendons of your really serious fingers
And we locked eyes and you told me
“Don’t ever stop”

I did feel that block in my throat, and in the end didn’t say all that much. Perhaps you read the thoughts through my expression but, perhaps not. And then your liveliness carried on, bringing easy smiles to our pensive mugs, laughing and telling my Father as he re-emerged that “he thinks I’m some mad old lady, doesn’t he?”. I just shook my head and said quelling words, followed by goodbye.

and Barbara Marshall died that night.

2024, September 29 of sad complications.