MEMORABILIA AND LOVE

Paper, letters, photographs, notes, 

magazine cuttings,postcards, 

we keep them all, for when?

We look through them all in 1960, 70, 80, 90,etc. 

each time throwing a little out, 

refining the collection 

that has grown each year to more, 

and for what?

Its all thrown away before it reaches the stage 

of giving a headache to any other member of the family, friends; 

and yet each time we go through it, 

some things ring bells of memory creating little joys, sorrows, 

sighs mixed with pleasures past; 

reminders in some cases, 

of how we neglected to answer this or that friend, 

of how well we phrased this or that message.

We go through life and our little cache of memorabilia grows; 

then towards the end, 

we fish out those that carry the most importance to

have close by and to remind our weakening memory 

of what it has been to live this life, 

and they comfort us.

Anne, she used to put family photographs etc. 

under the permanent table cloth in the sitting room, 

she would sneak a look as she passed, 

her husband perhaps not approving, 

secretively, she went often to visit the table 

and each time a little tear or a smile 

would accompany her moment, 

giving meaning to an otherwise uncreative, 

life of monotony. 

Bearing her husbands scorn for her cache, 

stubbornly she stuck to doing it, 

he loved her still in his own way, 

but the warmth of friendship had given way 

to quiet tolerance of his unending stories, 

and her ways of doing the fish that he didn't approve of, 

and which he had told her to do another way for many years, 

strengthening her resolve 

to keep doing them in just that way 

to spite him.

And then Olav died, 

and there she slept in the huge double bed, 

dwarfed by the pillows and the billowy downy, 

a wizened little old lady, 

alone, 

but when I came to visit 

there wasn't a warmer hand I had ever held in mine, 

compassionate and understanding 

in a totally uneducated, simple and direct manner, 

a human being in my life 

who awoke the essence of goodness and love; 

I mourned her death 

and could not bring myself to say one single word at her funeral, 

all was blurred 

and she remains a memory 

of one of the people I met 

with whom I understood what love is.