TAKE HEART

Late

Late home, one night, I found

she was not yet home herself.

So I got into bed and waited

under my blanket mound,

until I heard her come in

and hurry upstairs.

My back was to the door.

Without turning round,

I greeted her, but my voice

made only a hollow, parched-throated

k-, k-, k- sound,

which I could not convert into words

and which, anyway, lacked

the force to carry.

Nonplussed, but not distraught,

I listened to her undress,

then sidle along the far side

of our bed and lift the covers.

Of course, I’d forgotten she’d died.

Adjusting my arm for the usual

cuddle and caress,

I felt mattress and bedboards

welcome her weight

as she rolled and settled towards me,

but, before I caught her,

it was already too late

and she’d wisped clean away.

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I've saved this poem here because Brigid told me she had head it on Radio 4 this week.

The poet turns out the be a man, Christopher Reid, who lost his wife to brain cancer and subsequently wrote this collection of poems about the experience. This article in The Telegraph can tell you more.

For me, this poem makes tears stream down my face . . . it says so much about loss to me, about how the familiar sounds and movements of everyday life seem to turn traitor in death.

Anyone who has had a loving partner and a close relationship in life will know the fear that one day or other one of you is going to be left bereft by loss, by that resounding empty, silent space where your lover used to live.

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On Friday, when B was telling me about this poem and hearing it on the Radio on her way to work I felt chilled and tearful myself, and asked her if it had made her cry. She said no, no it hadn't made her cry. For some reason it had had an opposite effect, it had made her feel reminded of how common it is. How common it is to be left bereaved. She seemed to take some comfort in that.

I hope she continues to be so strong.

It is common. Death, loss, bereavment, common and entirely natural and a part of the deal we get when we get a life to live.

But, for me, I still think being left is worse than dying.