Compassion Summer 2023

10 tcf.org.uk I heard your voice memories of fun on the beach Dad reading at the bar and us grubbing in the sea and sand but it's just Not so socially acceptable at 52 but hey! Getting wet, fighting the tide, digging holes, burying dad, ice lollies, rock pools with shrimps and crabs….. You helped me pick the right ones They stood out and shouted as I walked up and down the shore with waves catching me out spewing their treasures on the shimmery sand. New suggestions each wave but grab them fast or they were gone! "Pick me", they said, some stones, some shells, some fragments but all speaking of your essence in some way. Complex in composition. Beautiful in combination Blues, pinks, creams, shiny, big or small. Only the best ones. A metre back on the sand I formed a large "R" with my favourites and a "u" too, then without warning a massive roar and the wave swallowed them back down the beach as it retreated without apologising for the disruption and chaos it left. I panicked at a deep level "No not yet" and grabbed my pretty mosaic bits back. I lost some of the best. Sorry love. I HAD to lay all 4 letters knowing the tide was waiting to snatch you away again You were never going to stay But I just needed a moment or two to see your name It's all I have now I said to the sea. Her name, my memories. I know you will snatch, frisk her away but I want to look at her name and hold her safe in my mind for a few minutes I accept I can't keep her. You can have her back. If I try to take her with me the shells will turn dry and dull. They belong here. Ruth is gone. I know that but please let me write her name, all of it and keep it to look at for a while. You can snatch her back then. A deal was met A 4 lettered name and a BIG SHELL HEART Holidays without our child by Lynn Douglas On 31 Mar 2023 Lynn Douglas wrote: Many of us in the summer think of our child while on holiday and have quiet sad moments missing them, remembering past times when holidays were happier affairs. I wrote this a few years after Ruth died whilst on holiday with a husband who finds my remembering and tears hard to handle. I still often sneak off quietly and write her name in the sand. The Algarve Oct 2011 COMPASSION | YOUR STORIES & POEMS