Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message ‘She is Dead’.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
The name of this poem by W.H. Auden is called FUNERAL BLUES. Since my mom died, Fri., Dec. 23, 2011, I have been working on my eulogy for her. This was read at the funeral in the movie Four Weddings and A Funeral, and my mom liked that movie. I don’t think I can read it. I wanted to try to, for my dad, as I think this is how he feels right now. Having said that I don’t agree with W.H. Auden’s last line, as applied to my family situation anyway. "For nothing now can ever come to any good", I PRAY that THAT is not true. My mom wouldn’t want us to never have any good in our lives since she died. Also, " I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong ", I don’t believe that and I know my mom doesn’t/didn’t either. Love changes I think, sometimes you just love someone more than LIFE itself. When I was a kid, I remember seeing this written on something by my mom to my dad, and even as a kid I thought, " WOW, that is SERIOUS!". Unconditional love from a mother has just got to be the best love of all, I have always thought that, and told her that too. "We are such brats or nincompoops sometimes, how DO you do it mom?" , I would ask her. No problem was the gist of her always effusive, magnanimous, overflowing with pure love answer.
Mom and I talked many times in the last year, and especially in her last months, about her death. I told her that when she dies here is part of how I will feel, " we thought it was all over for all of us when Robbie (my little brother, her son) was killed in 1989, but the sun WILL come out again, it might p*ss us off, but it WILL" , and we chuckled about that. I said " My life will NEVER be the same again, NEVER. You (mom) will be gone and I will have a gaping hole, a raw wound, for a very long time. It will eventually heal, leaving a scar on me/in me, for the rest of my life ". Then we cried a bit and watched a funny movie.
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