Warm fires in winter,
Toast cooked on a toasting fork,
Warm tea in powder blue cups,
Boiled fruit cake, Yo-yo biscuits.
Playing “How many bird in the bush, bush, bush?”
Feeding the lambs and collecting the eggs.
Your big box of rubber bands,
Sponges with strawberry jam and cream.
Afternoon teas on Sundays.
Being taught to play Euchre.
Town on Fridays,
Midnight Mass.
“Mary Poppins” with you.
“Good old bed!”
Lunch for the men,
You the last to eat.
Long-short-long, Brimin via Rutherglen.
The smell of naphthalene.
The big tin of buttons,
Playing “shop keepers”.
Dark brown hair hidden by silver,
Gentle caring,
Hard work,
Great love for family,
Generous heart.
Wooden butter pats,
Loquats and fruit from the orchard,
Lily of the Valley,
The Lillies you planted thirty years ago.
Photos of your family.
Every week letters to Jo,
Unconditional love.
Brown your favourite colour.
Your mother’s ring,
The locket with photos of mother and father.
A football match,
A rowing champion,
June 27, 1931.
This is real life and real love
Hey Jen, thank you. Yes she is with me everyday of my life. I can only aspire to be as good a person as she was. I was not with her when she passed and I wrote the poem in Paris when I heard the news. The cars accompanying her to her resting place went for 2 miles. She was loved and not only by her family.