Glimpses Of Goodbye

There are images that linger, that steal into our line of vision and lodge themselves forever in our hearts when we say goodbye.

There is a sense of time and space being moulded, formed into something recognisable for always, a metaphysical photograph folded carefully and kept in our pockets.

Remembrance can be dismal. It can be full of grey clouds and wet roads, but it can also be a reminder that there is still much in this life to love.

Like birds and flowers. Apples and stained glass.

And the things people hold dear.

On Friday we said goodbye to Louisa. A mother, a daughter, a woman we hardly knew. But we learned towards the end that she liked poppies, Emily Bronte and the way the afternoon light shone through the windows casting celestial patterns on her bed.

And maybe in this world where sometimes we have to settle for knowing so little; maybe those precious little things were in fact enough.

I was preoccupied at the funeral like some Seagram’s toting jazz singer doing gigs at the worst dives in town to pay her rent. I have to sell my record collection and it is like selling my own children. Years of collecting, years of good times, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.

I cried and cried at the funeral. Jules was surprised at my sorrow and I couldn’t tell her my tears were fuelled by selfishness, feeling sorry for myself for having to sell what is essentially just stuff when she has lost her mother. But those songs, those melodies have marked my life like etchings on the doorframe, chapters and pages I don’t really feel like closing.

Little Green Apples. One of my favourite songs ever. Sung by Bobbie Gentry and Glen Campbell on their 1968 album. I was kicking the dirt in the churchyard grumbling about having to let that song go when Jules felt the need to sing something as were saying goodbye to her mother. No one could think of a hymn, so I of course blurted out: God didn’t make little green apples. Jules knew the song straight away ( I have only played it for her about a thousand times) and somehow we all started to sing it. And somehow it seemed to fit.

And if that’s not loving me, then all I’ve got to say,
God didn’t make little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summer time.
There’s no such thing as Dr. Seuss, Disneyland and Mother Goose is no nursery rhyme.
God didn’t make little green apples, and it don’t rain in Indianapolis in the summer time.
And when myself is feeling low, I think about her face aglow and ease my mind. *

I think that in addition to poppies, Emily Bronte and afternoon sunlight, Louisa might have liked little green apples too.

The sights, the sounds of the day brought gladness and gratitude, made us feel moving on from the sadness was possible; hope flourished and flew, dispersing through the sky as we gathered to us our glimpses of goodbye.

* Lyrics from Little Green Apples by Bobby Russell which won the Grammy for Song Of The Year in 1969.