I was making my tea today when the children from hell next door (OK - they're not from hell at all, but allow an old man some poetic licence...) accosted me.
Young Hugo, who is three and a half and increasingly self-confident, asked me - "Where is your lady?"
I was, to put it mildly, taken aback - my wife died some 18 months ago, and for young Hugo to have remembered her was truly humbling - she was a kind and beautiful person, but to have had such an effect on a two year old was a surprise to me, and deeply disturbing.
His big sister, who is nearly 6 (Chloe, you are going to be a truly great writer...) promptly killed the conversation by reminding Hugo that Laura was dead, even though I had just said she had 'gone away'.
I loved my wife, deeply and probably to excess - but the fact that she has had such an effect on these two young people makes me humble and privileged to have been with her, however mad our time together was.
Laura - the small part of the world that you influenced still loves you, and this particular lumpy bit will love you for ever.
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Very moving. It shows that with the best efforts of analysis and empiricism, the emotions still win.
ReplyDeleteOh and BTW, kindly stop calling yourself an old man, it makes me seem ancient!!!!!
You moved me too... my wife (74) is close to dying after 20 years of MS and she only has me (66) to care for her. Abandoned by the caring B£iar government who unlawfully stopped exporting her meager Disability Benefit a decade ago, we are now broke, homeless (holed up in a cheap hotel) in central France... but feel safer, warmer and better fed than in the UK. Plus, over here in the street and bar every woman gives me a couple of kisses and every man shakes my hand, which is infinitely more friendly than I found in Blighty where I was born and bred and an easy going type of chap. However, I read all your entries and think similarly of most of what you wrote (and isn't it a bummer when a rat dies!). What's that other (not Spanish) saying... nil illigetemi carborundum!
ReplyDeleteCordialement... Monsieur P. Doff.
Tried to respond to your comment on GF but got modded. (When is the man going to sort his auto-m software properly? He lets the rubbish in and the serious stuff gets weeded out.)
ReplyDeleteKipling's words still speak to us with such power and passion. He was angry then. We still should be now at those "idle-minded overlings".
You will know that he also chose the words, “Their Name Liveth For Evermore” for the larger war graves.
Hope your world is continuing to improve.
That made me quite teary to read PG. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYou reminded me of Robert Anton Wilson being interviewed, when the interviewer asked him about the relationship he had with his late wife. Bob corrected him and said 'I'm still having a great relationship with her'.
Ayup Paragnostic! Who is Marty?
ReplyDeletehttp://order-order.com/2011/02/17/a-wonky-circle/
Your modded comment about meaning last night (GF) has been deleted along with my entire dialogue with Billy.
ReplyDeleteI suspect it was not Guido, but I do not know really. (I could say more but would only do so in private.) It was admittedly not O/T. Never mind. I arrived to find a mess of messages (appropriate collective noun) and just tried to pass a few pointers. Never mind.
Agree totally with your comments. If there are no shared values, one is left with a Hobbesian "state of nature".
It is good that there are people, such as you, who can think in an educated way that has not become institutionalised - and have fun at the same time.
Have not seen you in the virtual world for ages and hope that is indicative that the real world is going well for you.
ReplyDelete