“Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.”
This is a line from one of my favourite poets, Mary Oliver in Wild Geese . She writes almost exclusively about nature and its cyclical patterns. It’s emotions it’s metaphors. It is no surprise therefore she focusses on the mortality of all things. The natural ebb and flow of life. Loss part of life but so is celebration, so today I want to open the floor by saying if I tell you about my loss will you tell me about yours?
Growing up my paternal grandmother Herta was honestly my best friend, always in my corner, my proud cheerleader, my soft place to fall . When we were little, we would comb the beach in Sarnia for beach glass and she would always tease us. She thought that when she bought it for small change, she must’ve been buying the same beach glass over and over.
She was the life of the party, the queen. as the above picture denotes. That’s my Grandfather Stan smiling directly above her with the glasses. She spent her childhood going back and forth between Germany and the U.S and we think her family converted from Judaism. She and I played ridiculous games where we called each other, “daaaaarling” incessantly. I wrote something for her and my grandfather every Christmas. As my skill grew her admiration for me increased.
That was not to say they were not harsh words between us, but on the whole they were very few, and I will never forget how quickly she accepted Kara into my life. Even after and especially more so when she discovered that underneath her masculine appearance, Kara was in fact, a woman. She was astounded that there were services to help people like Kara and I have a family. Even in the absence of what my grandmother referred to as Kara’s “woo woo.”
My irrepressible grandmother made it to 100. At the end, she suddenly didn’t speak so much and I’m sure remembered even less. I had gone to visit her after near the end stages Kara, well after Kara had died, and I’m sure she was confused at who I was for most of the visit. However before we left she suddenly looked at me, grabbed my hands, and looked at me with her soft, blue eyes suddenly intense, almost on the point of tearful. And I knew she remembered exactly who I was.
She remembered me she remembered, she remembered Kara and now I remember her. Tell me despair and I will tell you mine, but also tell me your joy.
Tell Me Yours and I Will Tell You Mine