My Story

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My Mum was a very special wonderful woman with a heart of gold who was loved by all that she came into contact with, even all the people that she would inevitably feed whilst Mum and Dad were touring in the motorhome, oh yes, if you went to Mum’s you came out stuffed.

After my Mum had died and we were putting her affairs in order we came across these poems which none of us including Dad had any idea about.

I’m fine thank you
There is nothing the matter with me
I’m as healthy as I can be
I have arthritis in both knees
And when I talk, I talk with a wheeze
My pulse is weak and my blood is thin
But I’m awfully well for the state that I’m in.

Arch supports I have for my feet
Or I wouldn’t be able to be on the street
Sleep is denied me night after night
But every morning I find I’m alright
My memory is failing, my heads in a spin
But I’m awfully well for the state that I’m in.
How do I know that my youth is all spent
Well my get up and go has got up and went
But I really don’t mind when I think with a grin
Of all the grand places my get up has been.

Old age is golden I’ve heard it said
But I sometimes wonder as I get out of bed
With my ears in the drawer my teeth in a cup
My eyes on the table until I wake up
As sleep overtakes me I say to myself
Is there anything else I can lay on the shelf.
I get up each morning and dust off my wits
And pick up the paper and read the obits
If my name is still missing I know I’m not dead
So I have a good breakfast and go back to bed.

Obviously Mum was not well when she had written this next one,

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the that I have
Is yours.
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

And this one was found kept in with the wills,

Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away
into the next room, I am I, you are you.
Whatever we were to each other that we are still,
Call me by my own familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way which you have always used,
Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity
or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together,
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me, let my name be ever the household word that it always was,
let it be spoken without effect, without a ghost of a shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant,
It is the same as it ever was,
there is absolutely unbroken continuity.
What is death but a negligible accident why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight.
I am but waiting for you, for an interval somewhere very near.
Just around the corner, all is well.

You will always be remembered Mum,
Love you,
Steve.




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