Thursday 12 January 2017

Alan's 12th Birthday Anniversary-Tuesday 10 January 2017

Jamie helps me make the muffins.  His speciality, is checking that the chocolate chips are okay before we add them to the mixture.  Jamie and Cillian, both do extensive tests of the final mixture while I put dollops into the paper cases. 

Gardening tools, flask of hot chocolate and warm muffins and it's off to the graveyard. 
It’s nice being there, the four of us, weeding between the cobbles, pulling out the dandelions and tufts of grass. We leave the moss which fills the spaces with dark green velvet.  As we stand in silent prayer, Jamie digs in his pockets and carefully places a couple of crystals from his collection on the grave.

As we leave the graveyard the light is fading…



Soft pink rustles the top of the polytunnel.  A small airplane drones like a boat engine in the night steaming to the fishing grounds.  Darkness will soon descend on the land.  Purple black clouds clear a space of pink-streaked baby blue.  In the distance through a slit of orange, I see sky mountains maybe an island too, twinning High Island to the north.  The sea is a spectrum of aqua-navy through jade to white.  The sea is loud, crashing the shore.  In the garden, I tuck out of the wind in a dip which subsided where we buried the remains of our shed. I watch a late raven heading to roost.  As I catalogue the sensations of sound and sights and feel the breeze comfort my face, I have this feeling in my heart that I’m not sure what to do with.  I’m slightly beside myself.  Also a questioning; Am I sad enough?  What to do?  Where to put myself?  Part of me wants to lie down on the ground and zone out.  Not be here.  Part of me wants to write something profound.  And in the midst of the inner turmoil of unknowing there is still that slit of light in the sky lighting a white wispy cloud over High Island. It is beautiful and I wouldn’t have seen any of this on a normal day at this time as darkness unfolds and I enter my kitchenly world of artificial light.  And so l lie down on the grass wrapped in a blanket and take the time just to be with what is.






4 comments:

  1. Thank you Clarire for sharing your colours, shapes, forms, and senses of nature around you knowing that the day has brought exactly the right elements together in harmony of display to help you express your heart for Alan. Blessings. Ronan

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  2. I loved reading this. I lost two little girls, one at 8 months and one at 15 days. I don't have a grave to visit and I now live in a different country to where I scattered their ashes. Sometimes I feel sad to not have that place to visit and the ritual that can go with it but then I remember that it doesn't matter, they are in my heart so I can be anywhere. I have been planning to buy you're book and have a read for a while but I've not been brave enough yet, despite many years having passed I still find it hard to think about. Thanks for sharing this post you are inspiring xx

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  3. Thank you so much for your sharing. So sorry to hear about your little girls. Yes it's nice to have the ritual of going to visit the grave but you're right they are always in our hearts and that's the most important thing. Love transcends everything. Xxx

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