For my step-mother, Donna

Remember


Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no longer hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay
Remember me when no more, day by day
You tell me of our future that you'd plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or to pray
Yet if you should forget me for awhile
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad.


Christina Rossetti





My step-mother, Donna and father were inseperable. For a long time I worried about the agony one would live through as death separated them.  But now, my step mother no longer recognizes us.  I can only see her loss of memory as a blessing that spares her pain. My sister compares them to the couple in "The Notebook", and they truly were. To be with them was to be in the presence of great joy and love. This poem puts into words what my father can no longer say to her.