Andy

Here at the last edge of life's land, 
holds the fast fading ghost of once of me. 
Memories and self, as if drawn in the sand, 
lost to time's tide, the implacable sea. 

A huge day trip to Filey on the East Coast and back in a day, 270miles & 8 hours* for prescious moments of love.
Andy is the oldest of our relatives now, and physically in remarkable shape. But in these last few years the cruelty of dementia has taken hold. Now there are but embers of all he once was. 
He's known and been close to C all her life, and I feel I've known him forever too. A quiet man, a brave man, I can think of no finer praise than he simply was, is, and always will be,  a good man. He's always been one of the happiest people I've met, taking pleasure in everything, everyone and everywhere. 
I hate that this insidious thing has the power to make him seem gone, to push the past tense into the present. I know those embers will never rekindle, but sat at his side today they still cast a glow it was impossible to not be comforted by. 

Metaphor hung heavy as we wandered a ways in this old coastal town. Faded glories abound in the architecture, whilst a cold wind heralded change. Out to sea white horses inexplicably surface, seemingly at random, much like Andy's moments of clarity -rare, beautiful and welcome.  Then gone. 

As we drove west C told me tales of how Andy's father had fought and survived both World Wars. How Andy at 19 had gone to WWII and lost his cousin and dearest pal, but found in Eric, an older fellow soldier, a new family. How when he finally came back from the war changed and alone he just couldn't face home , so went to work on Eric's land, where he remained for the next fifty years. 
Soon there'll be no generation left to tell these tales first hand, so much lost forever.

*the drive over was a predictably dull set of A roads, motorway and ring roads. Terrible.
Leaving Filey we simply told the car to go home. I can only assume Prince had also been bored, as we returned, in the same miles and time, by a wonderful set of backroads and quiet roads, wending through the Howardian Hills, through parkland and past priories, a revelation and a joy. Well, until the A1...