The Consequences of Death

Eldest Daughter has won a poetry competition.

While I realise that (1.) I run the risk of sounding like a overly-proud, pushy-mum type of mum (and we don't like them, do we?) plus (2.) I may be committing some sort of copyright crime (I haven't asked Eldest Daughter's permission) I've nevertheless decided to share her poem with the world (or, more accurately, with the one or two fellow bloggers who've stumbled across my blog recently) because I am so proud of her and I think it's a beautiful poem.

It's about her grandma, my beloved mum, who died of ovarian cancer when Eldest Daughter was five. She's now fourteen. The competition 'brief' was to use another poem as inspiration/a starting point ... and then develop an 'opposite'.

The poem Eldest Daughter chose was written by Henry Scott-Holland, Canon of St Paul's
Cathedral (1847-1918) - 'Death is nothing at all'. This was her response.


Consequences of Death

Death is cruel and selfish.
Because now you've slipped too far away
We can no longer be
What we were to each other
Life means all it ever meant
To most people.
To the people who didn't know you.
But not to me.

It will continue, yes
But with a tint of blue
No, it will continue with a tint of grey
In my eyes
Because blue is too bright
And the sky is blue
And you loved the sky.

With the thought of you
Comes a shadow.
And it lingers in my mind
And I dodge it.
And I push it backwards
So that I don't have to see it clearly.

With a glance at a picture of you
And of me
Laughing
I laugh.
That was a happy day
Then I cry.
I hate that picture now.

It is hidden behind a bookcase
Of your books
And of the stories you read
And the poems that you laughed over
And the poems that you cried over.

And now I hate that bookshelf.
I have locked the door of the room it is in.
And I have closed the curtains in that room
So that nobody can see into it.

Because now you've slipped too far away
We can no longer be
What we were to each other
And I'll carry on life
In a shadow
The shape of you.

I'm so proud of her. She's a beautiful, old soul, my Eldest Daughter. When she was very little, she regularly displayed a sensitivity which was astounding. She was a sweet, gentle child. Now, more often than not, she's a ranting, raving, hormonal maniac who wears waaaaaaaay too much eyeliner and shorts that are far too short. She is incapable of taking a shower unless accompanied by Florence and the Machine on full volume. On occasion, she is hideously unkind to her little sister, who's just starting to get hormonal herself (lucky me) and sometimes she's unkind to me, too.

But clearly, beneath that brittle exterior, there still lurks the same sweet, sensitive soul ....