Sometimes of an evening – usually rather late of an evening I sometimes have a rather other-worldly idea that I am not alone. I am of course and have been now for the more than six years since Magucha died in in January 2016.
I know full well that this is my, possibly, over active imagination wishing that it was true. Because you see I really miss the companionship – just having someone to touch. Whenever I see couples holding hands I can “feel” Magucha’s pata (Portuguese for “paw”), what she called her little hand, creep into mine.
But then close to 36 years of a, sometimes, tumultuous marriage leaves its mark. Magucha’s quick fire, Latin temperament, meant that there were moments of high drama but we seemed to get on well together. A bit like Yin and Yang – interconnected opposite forces I suppose. But I loved her dearly and sorely miss her mischievous sense of humour and her intelligence. I’ve now lost the sound of her voice and her infectious laugh – I can’t “hear’ them any more. She was never a “hugger” – accusing me, in her sometimes deliberately mangled English, of “strafogating” her if I hugged her too tightly. She never objected too strongly, though, to a kiss. And that I miss too.
Grief is so strange – I know that everyone is different and “one size” certainly doesn’t fit all. With me grief seems to come in “waves” but it’s in the evenings that I miss her so keenly. Someone to share the day’s experiences with, a goodnight kiss and knowing that if I stretch out I can touch her. Now just a dream of course.
That is one reason why I write things down – and I always have. High emotion is difficult to express and keeping it “in”, as it were, something I never agreed with. I used to keep hand-written journals – plenty of those – but now it seems to be digitalized! Not quite the same as holding a pen and putting my thoughts on paper. That has a more cathartic effect I think. But it’s what I do now.
This may sound as if I’m sorry for myself! I’m not. You see we had a very rewarding life together. But living in the past was never something I did. At least I don’t think so. So I’m going to end, as I often do, with a poem, a bit of a wish, I suppose, by John Masefield:-
The Word
My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,
And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,
May we be rich in love’s refined gold,
May love’s gold coin be current with us still.
May love be sweeter for the vanished days,
And your most perfect beauty still as dear
As when your troubled singer stood at gaze
In the dear March of a most sacred year.
May what we are be all we might have been,
And that potential, perfect, O my friend,
And may there still be many sheafs to glean
In our love’s acre, comrade, till the end.
And may we find when ended is the page
Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.
