How do you sum up a life?

Yesterday my Grandma would have been 98.  But she died before she got there, and today we held her funeral.  As I was driving home the day after she died, my mind full of rich and abiding memories of someone I dearly loved and who dearly loved me, I kept thinking 'How do you sum up a life?'. And so I wrote a poem, and that is my tribute to her today.  Love you Grandma.

How do you sum up a life?

When the end was close, and words became noise

It was in the look of love

Resting with my face a breath from yours

Hands held tight

Eyes locked tighter still in a soul’s embrace

As I stroked your hair, I thought of your mother

Ninety-seven - nearly ninety-eight - years ago

Stroking the head of her precious first born

No words then to be spoken

Just a look of love to be shared.

How do you sum up a life?

You bookend it with looks of love.

How do you sum up a life?

You weave it through with a golden thread

Of love and care and kindness

And so many people

Those nursed, those gathered up and taken in, those family, those friends,

              those whose presence reappeared in a glance at that ornament or that cup

Things were precious because of the people that shared them.

How do you sum up a life?

With the humble exceeding of expectations 

     "Girls don't need an education to be a maid"

     But in service you grew character 

     With war came opportunity 

     With marriage came partnership

And you rose with dignity, amazed that you could eat from a table with white cloth and flowers,

      that you could travel the world

And so, so proud of your son, your granddaughters, your great-grandchildren,

      forgetting that you were the one that created us...

How do you sum up a life?

With times of loss

Different futures snatched away

Yet somewhere deep drawing from a well of courage

To reorient life again and again.

How do you sum up a life?

With simple joy and contentment

The smell of a rose, a handkerchief, a cream cake, a 'special' breakfast

Pleasure in the stories of those you love

Feeding those you love on plates that were never quite big enough

The sunshine on trees, the children playing, the little treats

A swing round the dance floor, secret delight in the words that weren't quite right

"Shall we play a VD now....?"

How do you sum up a life?

"A special lady" seems not enough

So I'll leave you with that look of love.