Abstract Thursday - Remembering

This morning’s service at St Luke’s was exactly what was needed to counter the grimness of the grey November skies, the depressing news from America yesterday and the sadness I have been feeling about the short days and the loss of my parents and sister. The message in the sermon was one of hope. This world has always had the same things going on for us to cope with - aggressive or oppressive leaders, wars, financial crashes, famine, natural and man-made disasters, the persecution of people of faith, the loss of those closest to us. But there is always hope. Mum, Dad and Kaye’s names were among those of the departed read out in remembrance and prayer this morning. The comfort I got from that simple act put me in mind of this poem called ‘Remember Me’, written by the American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead (1901-1978) who was also a poet -

To the living, I am gone,
To the sorrowful, I will never return,
To the angry, I was cheated,
But to the happy, I am at peace,
And to the faithful, I have never left.

I cannot speak, but I can listen.
I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.
So as you stand upon a shore gazing at a beautiful sea,
As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity,
Remember me.

Remember me in your heart:
Your thoughts, and your memories,
Of the times we loved,
The times we cried,
The times we fought,
The times we laughed.
For if you always think of me, I will never have gone.

Thank you to Ingeborg for hosting Abstract Thursday. In this season of remembrance, I am wearing a knitted poppy which Mum used to wear, and pinned onto that is a tiny metal poppy with the year 2013 inscribed on it. It was the last poppy Dad bought and wore on his lapel before his death the following year. They used to volunteer to collect for the Royal British Legion every year outside Tesco. My abstract blip is, of course, made from a photo of their poppies.