Valentine.

 Busy with tidying up and throwing away unwanted papers, I came across a Valentine Card to us both from a carer in 2020. It says:

Happy Valentines Day 2020.

A little sweet treat for you both the share.

The devotion you have to each other in the daily care shown in your beautiful home speaks volumes and is quite something to be part of.

Keep caring

Keep loving

Keet smiling

Keep laughing

Keep going

Keep well

Keep doing an amazing job Stephen in your care and love for your beautiful Jean.

If she could tell you today how much she loves and thanks you I know she would. 

In Other Words - Songs of Experience

Not a poem but I hope you enjoy this anthology.

Relationships last for days or decades, all remembered , all .dear. Here are a few songs conveying emotion, hope and love, life's soundtrack.

* * *

I took my love, took it down
I climbed a mountain, and I turned around

And I saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills
'Til the landslide brought me down
Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Hmm-hmm, hmm-hmm

* * *

Everyday seems a little longer

Every way, love's a little stronger

Come what may, do you ever long for
True love from me?
Everyday, it's a-gettin' closer
Goin' faster than a roller coaster
Love like yours will surely come my way

* * *

Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away.
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died

* * *

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence.

* * * 

We were talking about the space between us all
And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion
Never glimpse the truth
We were talking about the love we all could share
When we find it, to try our best to hold it there with our love
With our love, we could save the world, if they only knew.

* * *

Always and forever, each moment with you
Is just like a dream to me that somehow came true
And I know tomorrow will still be the same
'Cause we've got a life of love that won't ever change.

* * *

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born
Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn
Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn
Dance me to the end of love

Hineni, hineni, I'm ready, my Lord
There's a lover in the story, but the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering and a paradox to blame.

There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

* * * 

Can you hear me calling Out your name?
You know that I'm falling And I don't know what to say
I'll speak a little louder I'll even shout
You know that I'm proud And I can't get the words out
Oh, I want to be with you everywhere.

* * *

Why not think about times to come
And not about the things that you've done
If your life was bad to you
Just think what tomorrow will do
Don't stop thinking about tomorrow
Don't stop, it'll soon be here
It'll be better than before
Yesterday's gone, yesterday's gone

Acknowledgements:

Stevie Nix, Buddy Holly, Don McLean, Simon & Garfunkel, George Harrison, Rod Temperton/Heatwave, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac.

Comments.

#1 I met my wife on the Conniston Old Man mountain

#2 My wife's first LP was a Buddy Holly compilation.

#3 American Pie was iconic in the 1960s. I was brought up with church music which died for me after church abuse. 

#4 The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel was also iconic. Silence is political, the decision not to be aware of social justice.

#5 George Harrison's spiritual songs emphasise relationships and ethics, a summary of our lives.

#6 Rod Temperton was a secondary school fellow pupil. I focus this passage on my wife who I am caring for, a life of love.

#7 Leonard Cohen has been the soundtrack of our lives. These extracts emphasise love and service..

#8 The loss of our conversations sums up my reaction to her and possibly her mental struggle to express herself. Meanwhile, reflection on life can be positive.

GOODBYE TO 2022

 As I won't be sending out cards this year end, this post is an update on our year. Many thanks to the people who have kept in touch at this time over the past fifty years. The tree went up today after stubbornly refusing to be found. I was persuaded last year to buy a fake tree by the carers. Here it is with built-in flashing lights, erected in 20 minutes It was hiding in the loft.

 We always had a real tree and Jean used to enjoy spending all day dressing it. Here is one in happier days, with a visiting friend

My wife Jean has been seriously disabled for 7 years now after three difficult decades for her. She has acute brain damage which has stripped her of language, reading, knowledge and ability to process radio and television. She does respond to music though and lives mainly in her own inner world. I look after her at home after a brief stay in an awful care home arranged by social  care. They neglected to feed her a main meal four times in five days (fortunately I was there to insist) and once even forgot to put her to bed. We have evolved an effective routine at home, with carers coming in for an hour morning and evening and some respite/companionship time on some weekday lunchtimes. A year ago she was in hospital with malnutrition and dehydration (she seemed unable to swallow) and I was advised by the A&E doctor to arrange her funeral. Fortunately I was allowed to spend 5 hours a day at her bedside and make sure she built up her strength by eating properly and she was allowed home after ten days. Her room is what used to be the dining room, containing a hospital bed with air mattress, a hoist and a chair which prevents skin sores.  She spends her day either in her chair or bed (both provided by the NHS) and sleeps a great deal, usually with Rosie the cat. 

The cats are 18 now and both have a hyper-thyroid condition which require two tablets each daily, morning and evening.. One is incontinent which makes life interesting. First job of the day, cleaning it up. 

The garden has been a struggle. I pay two young gardeners to keep hedges  trimmed, shrubs pruned and odd jobs done, and a local plantswoman to help sowing and planting. I grow runner beans, beetroot, chard, rhubarb and green salad. Flowers include penstemons, salvias, cosmos, fuchsias and there are lots of shrubs - roses, weigela, mock orange, buddleias. Sadly it is not the joy it used to be, just a chore. Here is a callistemon, 'bottlebrush' flowering last week unseasonably.

Alas Covid has meant very fewer visitors over this year, but neighbours, nurses and carers have been good company. I have kept writing. This blog is a kind of day book, a bit more than a diary and you might enjoy some of the entries. Recently I have been reflecting on aspects of life and have found poetry to be helpful. I am strictly an inexperienced amateur but I have found the process therapeutic, challenging yet enjoyable. 

I sadly have to report the death of family members Ian Madden and Matt Dagg, friends Viv and Sue, and several former colleagues. I hope you all have a good 2023. That may be optimistic but we can but hope.  Stephen

Obituary, Vivian (Viv) Bartlett.

I learnt about Viv’s death on Monday. He and I worked together in Swindon in the first decade of this century on a project to raise self-understanding in school children. At first the children we worked with had opted out of schooling and learning, with acute social and family issues. The project began shortly after the millennium exhibitions in The Dome and Viv’s part in the work with children was called The Discovery Zone. This consisted of exercises with difficult children to draw out discussion on the consequences of actions and attitudes, and how to cope with the emotions driving us to a pro-social or anti-social outcome. The detail simplified over the years, asking the young people to decide whether to be consumers or contributors – that is, whether to be part of a wasteful throw-away society, or to contribute to creating a better world.

Viv had been a secondary teacher who based his teaching philosophy on patience and respect. Viv and his wife were members of the Baha’i Faith, a monotheistic faith which teaches equity, justice, the continuity of religion, anti-racism, anti-misogyny, environmental protection and many other issues which chime today with ethical living.

I first encountered Baha’is in the 1980s but almost did so in 1967. This was the year I went up to Manchester University to study Biblical Studies. My theology was fluid since I had unhappy experiences with the fundamentalist Christian sect I was brought up in. I saw a flier for a Baha’i meeting in my first term and had I attended, the outcome may have been different. The Christian fundamentalists continued to campaign abusively against my critical understandings and we parted company in early1969. I became a school teacher from 1973 since no university posts were available. My wife and I met in 1967 and we became close in summer 1968 and married in 1969.

Since the 1980s I built up a substantial number of Baha’i books including scriptures, and met many Baha’is. . I agree with the ethical underpinning but my rationalist understanding of theology is not compatible with Baha’i theology.

Viv and I collaborated on his book on the Youth Empowerment Programme under the title Nurturing a Healthy Human Spirit in the Young (published by George Ronald 2014) which described and explained the empowerment process in detail. He asked me to write an introduction, which I did. I had been an external evaluator of the programme throughout 2004 to 2008.

Viv was a man I was privileged to know and work with.

POEMS: An Introduction

 Below this Introduction are six poems, the first I have written. I don't claim quality for them but they forced themselves on me and I had to get them out of my system so I can write other things which are blocked. They are not the rhyming sort of poem, though they are occasional purposeful rhymes.  I have not studied literature or poetry

A bit of background. I am full-time carer for my wife of 53 years who now has no language she can communicate with, and has lost all knowledge she ever had. Things are as they are. I have tried various ways of writing autobiographically without success. These poems satisfy me most and give me the flexibility to explore things that come to mind. I appreciate it is hard for readers who have not shared my journey to tune into my personal reflections. But be assured that for me it has been a positive experience, maybe therapeutic. Much in the collection is celebratory and I hope this can be a starting point for readers.

I use a pen-name for the sake of privacy, 

Poem 7. Grief, a persistent stalker. by Stevie Dufyn

Grief, a persistent stalker.

Stevie Dufyn, December 2020

A child is born, and eight years later is dead.
Grief, they say, gets easier over time.
They are wrong. That 8 year old
Would now be fifty four, with children and grandchildren.
So a grief trebled.

A child not born, or miscarries
Might-have-been children, a daughter, a son
A dream, a hope, a future, redirected.
Or a child born who might have been a friend
But decided otherwise.

A mother, once an artist and carer
Found an imaginary family
But lost her own for twenty years
As they sadly saw her disintegrate.
Compounding the grief.

A wife, planning a life with a husband of her choosing
Hearing the knock on the door with the news
That she no longer has a husband.
Grief, they say, gets easier over time.
They are wrong.

Grief is a stalker, striking when not expected.
When reading a book, or watching a film,
Or hearing a song, or talking with a friend,
Grief breaks down the myth of control
After a year, a decade, a lifetime…

Grief, they say, gets easier over time.
They are wrong.

 © Stevie Dufyn December 11, 2022.

POEM 6: WORDS

    WORDS

by Stevie Dufyn   

December 2022.

Thoughtful words are all too rare,
Words of love, of hope, of care.
Words can harm, all hope to sever,

Their effects can last for ever.

She spoke her first word. Daddy
She read her first book. Rupert.
She spelled out her first word, Bear.
She joined the library, and went to school.

She was friendly and talkative,
But mother said Stop mithering
So she stopped, and read
Every book in the town library.

She liked her Dad reading with her.
A working man, cloth cap,
An old dad, the age of a granddad.
Who worked too hard and died too soon.

She was fourteen then, in a school
That did not appreciate her,
Or other working class girls,
Preferring the rich and connected.

At home she only had her mum,
And mum only had her,
Expecting to be looked after into old age
As she had done long ago.

Pleasing words are all too rare,
Words of love, of hope, of care.
Words can harm, all hope to sever,
Their effects can last for ever.

Conversation once refused could not be mended,
The girl went to university
To the surprise of her school
Or at least that’s what they said.

University was hard, thanks to an injury
To the head with a hockey stick,
A concussion to last a lifetime.
But she met a boy, and married, and became a teacher.

She told the boy about her favourite books,
And they became his favourite authors too,
And they met these, their children, their admirers
But bore no children to share books with.

No children the authorities wanted adopting
Only white babies, since we are white.
A family for black and brown children
Clearly did not matter. Alas.

A Masters degree led her
To a senior job in a comprehensive school.
But the head injury deepened
And with it gradual decline.

Yet there were twenty more working years
Until the words and memories departed, from a dictionary
To a few, Yes, don’t, lovely, good
Thanks, hello, goodbye, oh dear, oh God.

Wisely use your words of love
Words of cheer, with hope to prove.
Words can harm, and bring in strife,
Their effects can last for life.

© Stevie Dufyn December 2022