All Saints Day

Today I will cuddle my godchild E & play with my cousins who will be thrilled they see each other after a long time. It will also be a day that my emotions will be tested because every year over and over I try to get through All Saints unharmed. Not that I do not think it is not useful to have such a day. A day to remember the loved ones who have exchanged their earthly stay for something different. But I just do not like it to be a day that makes me feel so down.

For years I have not gone out there on this day because I also do not like to hang out there while the half of the nation is close by. For me going to visit a grave is something I like to do in private. That the graveyard is more colorful thanks to the many flower arangements is a nice to experience but it does not take away the sadness, the grief and the painful memories. I can't manage to concentrate when I am there with others. I need to be on my own while I am out there. And believe me it is already quite a challenge to go there.

Why? Well, because it is at that exact spot that I do come to terms with what I have lost. And that it is something that can't be restored. Yes, I have already taken A along there because I want him to know who his grandfather was. He does call him 'bompa' and he likes to put flowers on the stones. At school he has been told what this day stands for and he has told me that he still misses our house cat Baziel who died a few years ago. I guess for a child of his age the death of an animal is still more serious then the death of person he just never knew. What does make sense.

Today I will be lightning a candle for all those people who I had to say goodbye to, who brightned up my life and managed to get a message across that makes my life more worth while to live. I have just not made up my mind yet if I want to walk by the grave of my dad. What I do know is that we are taking along sparkling wine, Trivial Pursuit, my computer to show my mum some nice pics (no she still has got no computer and no internet!) and my camera to take some shots of my family who I love a great deal.

'All Souls' (by Edith Wharton, two first verses)

A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.



Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope--
For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.

...


P.S.: Perhaps a very 'strange' choice of music to go along with this one. But then it was today the first music my iPod Nano gave me when I turned it on Shuffle. And yes, I would give everything to get one more day with many souls that are now out there where we can't touch or see them. That does hurt!