Remembering the best of times

DEATH is seldom a joyous or happy occasion. There is rarely a cause to celebrate. Even if those mourning, may steel themselves as best they can to spin the positives regarding the loss, it still remains exactly that, the loss. The gap, the absent, the missed. Even when the tears and shock have eased for the grief-stricken, there still remains the snatches of reflection that catch one off guard.

The habits, moments or traditions that were shared, no longer exist. And now, there are no second chances to ask those questions or seek that advice. Or share the news. Nor can we absorb the answers and be all the richer for them. Our auto-pilot minds and hearts will continue to accumulate, daily, the small nuggets of existence and life that we would regularly deliver or exchange with the one that we’ve lost, whether it had been over and back across a dinner table, over a counter, at the shops or on the street.

But now that communication has been severed, and our bundle of ‘stuff ’ just gets bigger and unshared, until gradually we learn to adapt, release, and let it blow away. Or keep it locked inside.

A sadness that has to be borne. And time passes. But if we are very lucky, and we have the strength to recognise it, there comes a time, when we are capable of reflection under a brighter light. A warmer glow. Something that might well allow us to smile on through the sadness.

Irish poet Brendan Kennelly like many a Kerry native and writer, would consider himself a very open and honest writer, seeing, saying and recording it, as it is. And when doing so, tapping in to that very essence of ‘self ’. What it is that makes us be. What shapes us and all around us.

The present and the past. In his poem ‘I See You Dancing, Father’ Kennelly visits the past and plucks from it a beautiful, colourful memory of his late father. No sooner downstairs after the night’s rest

And in the door

Then you started to dance a step In the middle of the kitchen floor.

And as you danced

You whistled

You made your own music Always in tune with yourself.

Well, nearly always, anyway You’re buried now In Lislaughtan Abbey And whenever I think of you

I go back beyond the old man Mind and body broken

To find the unbroken man.

It is the moment before the dance begins,

Your lips are enjoying themselves

Whistling an air. Whatever happens or cannot happen

In the time I have to spare

I see you dancing, father.

It may at first appear sad, but the imagery and remembrance gradually reveal themselves to be joyous and filled with an opportunity to glow. He is remembering his father from a phase in both their lives when one was upright, happy and strong, and the other watched on in admiration and awe.

What warmer, more tender place to recall than the family kitchen? Whistling, dancing, music. In tune with himself, and smiling lips ‘enjoying themselves’. What a strong image and what a strong bright memory. It’s all too easy, too often to accentuate the negative or miserable when reflecting on our losses.

Well, perhaps to say ‘ too easy’ is unkind, perhaps it can be difficult to avoid or see over. But it’s marvellous here to read of a son not threatening to dance on his father’s grave.

No, he paints and shares a lovely memory in a lovely poem. We know he loved his father, and to allow us in to see that, is quite enough.