My Dad is a giant character, an institution in himself and the archetypal family patriarch. Dad has always been there, with his back turned to cave entrance, guarding, guiding and protecting his children, even as we enter our late middle age, a seemingly indestructible presence. Although we don’t always appreciate his persistent supervision, each one of us were knocked way off balance when he was recently hospitalised with severe pneumonia. You’d think that, at 93 years of age, we would all have had some inkling that Dad may not be with us forever, but his never-say-die (literally) attitude kind of keeps us believing in his immortality.
Anyway, true to form, he pulled through and is living to fight another day, pottering around the garden, driving(!) and scrolling through Facebook…
During his illness though, I found myself reflecting on what I valued most about the many things he had taught me. Besides his financial advice : “if you’re always generous, you’ll never have to worry about money” (sorry Bill!); the most important thing that Dad has given to me, and to all of my siblings is a love of poetry. Dad has an incredible feel for poetry and the gift of truly appreciating its depth and beauty. I have seen Dad moved to tears by poems, and am lucky enough to share his reactions, getting goosebumps from certain poems no matter how many times I read them. It was not surprising then, that when I workshopped Dad’s illness with my younger sister, I found that, like me, she had used poetry as a way of coping. Both of us had been mentally reciting a poem every day, over and over to soothe ourselves and to help make sense of life’s inevitable changes. We had chosen different poems, but both were helpful to us and I thought you might enjoy reading them!
Pip chose:
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Robert Frost
I chose:
Do not go gentle into that good night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas
Gay Taylor 