Appreciations

I had a friend… I have a friend …I had a friend
Have- had -have -had -have- had- have- had
Grammar and reality versus emotion
Battling in my mind for supremacy
I have a friend - emotion wins
How can my other self be relegated to the past tense
If I myself still am?
How can a being as alive, vibrant and irrepressible
As you Lynda ever be stone cold dead?

I hear your voice, I see your smirky smile,
The full throated chuckle, the hot and bothered you
Dripping perspiration cussing the humidity
Every little detail
Forever etched … tattoo-like on me and mine.

You invaded our lives, every aspect of my household
With love, with care and generosity unbounded
The nuances, what was left unsaid
You would intuitively catch and know
So intimately connected were you with us.
Many were the times I felt you knew me
Better than I knew myself
In a sense we were
Un-scientifically un- biologically family
Possibly even closer than family

The exhaustion we felt
Just unwrapping the heaps of Christmas gifts
You always plied us with
Not only us your friends but everyone around you
Especially the staff in your employ
The exquisite and elaborate gift -wrapping,
The tender words on carefully selected cards,
What a labour of love
A single birthday card for a friend
And others near and dear
-à la regular people,
Would never suffice for you and gift(s)
It had to be multiples - in fact
Everything had to be that way.
Over and above.
Your hearth and home were a refuge and
Half-way house for many along life's journey
Time you had and made for the sick and elderly.

The fabulous and memorable Christmas brunches
Home-cooked -especially Dec 2005 - almost a last supper
In retrospect, I think you knew the end was near
I can't believe I'm sitting, composing this
Rather than keying in
On the mobile (you gave me)
To have one of our on an average five chats per day.!
It all happened so quickly a year ago
And now you're away.
We knew, all of us, that sickness had you in its grip
We knew also that you were brave, medically savvy
And not inclined to accept a patient's role meekly
You didn't want to live with another's
Transplanted heart beating in place of yours
I don't fault you for that… your heart was unique.
So came the end swiftly and suddenly
I think the way you would have liked it to
At home in your sleep
A few hours after we had our last conversation
About men, matters and the state of the world
No inkling of what the morrow would bring
Not for you the prospect of hospitalization,
Hospital smells, dirty mops, Sassy doctors.

Radiant were you in repose as you always were in life.
It's eerie, I can almost feel you
Looking curiously over my shoulder as I write
Instructing, prompting fine- tuning
As we used to do, many times together
Professional CV and letter writers
For the less privileged
Who had no access to computers and printers.
Prolific e-mailer with the funniest bone in town
Is St Peter in stitches and choking with your jokes and asides, repartee and wit? - I miss you Lynda

You were precious to many
A daughter, a wife, a mother and an in-law
And of course a friend
Friendship for you was sacred
Elevated, almost on par with religion
What a scintillating amalgam
Whimsical, quixotic, peppery
Incurably romantic
Elegant, genuine, funny and serious
A clean-freak, generous
Adventurous
Perfectionist, gay and gutsy
Queen of the internet
A gift-wrapped with the
'Milk of human kindness'
And tied up with streaks of mischief!

You are here and you always will be
In my mind and in our lives
Until 'you bore a hole and pull me through'.
You will not grow old
And I'll have to wear purple all by myself
If I live to be old….and you know what?
It won't be half the fun without you
I'm not sad that you died, I'm smiling and glad
That you lived. You really did.