Speaking to the dead

[watervole]

Do you speak to the dead?
Have conversations in your head?
Tell them things you've done today?
Wish they hadn't gone away?

Do you say: "Hi Roz" when you handle a sea shell that reminds you of her?
Do you say: "Something a bit special," when buying a plant that Molly would have loved?

Do you remember them, not in big ways, but in little ones. Shared memories, little habits, things you wear?

"Rosalie would have loved that dress," I think, though it's more than a decade since my sister died. Her children are separate people to me now.  Loved for their own sake's rather than for her.  They don't remember, apart from tiny fragments - they were too young when she died.  Aunty Gillian holds memories for them: photographs, stories, a mother who loved them.

Oswin, Molly's great-granddaugher, won't remember her either, though she toddled through Molly's home and paddled in the stream in her garden. 

Yet, sometimes, she asks me "Whose was that?" and I know I must have told that this flower and that came from Molly's garden.

She plays with the miniature tortoises that Molly collected, and if, one should get lost or broken, I shall regard it as a small price if these things come to be loved by another generation.

Time flows in one direction only, but sometimes, we can dam a corner of the stream and preserve a little memory here and there.

Comments

[coth]

No, I don't speak to the dead, but I think about them. I remember in the garden particularly. I planted our cedar tree with a small legacy from my grandmother nearly twenty years ago, and several of the other plants were either gifts from my parents or cuttings from their garden. The clock in the kitchen was my other grandmother's last gift to me, for we finished the kitchen in our new old house a month before she died. And there is furniture from all their houses: a mantel clock, two chairs, a table, some bookcases, some pictures, a chest...all come with memories of other houses and other uses. Not to excess, I hope, but comforting nevertheless.

[watervole]

I think plants are one of the best kinds of connections because they need caring for. tending them is comforting and when the plant thrives, I feel good in turn.

we have odd bits of furniture, pieces that we all enjoyed. Not much, space is limited, but a settle seat with a toy box inside, a grandfather clock, some dining chairs.

[coth]

Yes, that's certainly a thing.

[eledonecirrhosa]

Out loud comments are most likely to be of the "I miss you" sort. Internal thoughts are of the "Ruth would have enjoyed this new cafe" or "Dad would have wanted to talk about that news story" sort.

[ranunculus]

Lovely post.
Yes, I often think of past loved ones, especially when experiencing something that would delight them, or caring for a legacy plant.

[watervole]

That's it exactly!

I see something she would love and tell her about it in my head.

[pensnest]

I don't speak to them, but I appreciate the memories the world nudges me into. When I see someone in a red mobility scooter, when I hear elderly women chatting on the bus, when I see the goldenrod blooming in my garden, I think of my grandma, and it makes me smile.

Watching Christopher Lee on the immense background DVDs for the Lord of the Rings trilogy reminds me so sharply of my father—the voice is the same, the intonations and pauses are the same, the face is... well, longer and thinner, but—anyway, it reminds me of my father as he was before he had the stroke and lost that big, resonant bass voice.

I don't talk to them, but I appreciate the memories.

[ramtops]

I bought a dressing table mirror from a friend who died very suddenly two weeks later - I was devastated to lose her.

And almost every morning when I look in it, I say "Hello, Jude".

[watervole]

I can totally relate to that.

[raspberryfool]

Yes, I sometimes talk to my late father, and since I live alone there's no-one but the walls to hear me. I have many of his things around me, and those of my mother and maternal grandparents; all long-gone of course.

My garden has lots of plants my father planted; it was his garden really! In the front is a huge rosemary bush that grew from a cutting from my maternal grandfather's garden. It's top-heavy and half-blocks a path but I don't have the heart to remove it. He was a farm labourer and a skilled gardener who grew lots of fruit, veg and flowers.

When Dad died, my sister bought me a cider gum (eucalyptus gunnii) tree, which is now asserting itself with gusto. He was Australian and I think he'd have liked a gum tree there, in front of his sprawling grapevine.

[watervole]

You could always take a cutting from it and start a new bush.

The gum tree sounds very apropriate.