It is not about the length of life but the depth of it ...

My regular readers know of the loss of my beloved Father to Covid in January 2021. This past November, I did the last thing asked of me as a daughter when I saw that my Fathers ashes were interred with my forever young brother & Mother. 

Two years on - we never know (thankfully) when it will be our last conversation with someone. If we did, we would not want it to end, we would want to say more, to say everything ... 

There are three deaths 

The day your body ceases to function, 

The day you are buried / interred, 

The time in the future when your name is no longer spoken.  

Nothing can prepare you to no longer be anyone's child, no 'dearest daughter' card will ever drop through the door again, you are effectively orphaned.  It is sobering & a final line in the sand of life that no one will ever ask something of you as a parent to a child. 

Losing both your parents means you lose the connection to your own childhood because they were the keeper of your earliest memories, of your past & no one has that special connection again.  

Material things do not matter at the end of it all; they are for the living to squabble over; legacies need only memories, love & dedication.  I honour my parents by remembering their best qualities - like all parents, they were growing up at the same time as we were.  We are truly adults when we accept our own shortcomings & those of our parents. 

While I live, the names of my dearly departed ones will be spoken because their genes are my genes. 

I sometimes catch a glimpse of them in my mirror - their eyes, their hair, their cleft chin, their broad forehead, their mannerisms ...  

I brought back one of my Fathers shirts from South Africa & have been making it in to a special letter holder for the precious letters written in his neat copperplate script.  I made one for my Mother's letters some years back with special cloths from her. Dad's one is very much his colours, his style, immediately recognisable as him ... 

They are not forgotten until there is no one left to remember, and when there is no one left to remember, we will all be together again. 

 Dee 💕