The 18th of August

I speak to a headstone. 

I tell you of your boys. your boys I've come to love. 

of our friendship, our true friendship that only thickens the blood we share. how everyone tells us how thrilled you'd be to see us so close. 

I tell you of the home video vhs footage of you, that I had put on dvd to give to your boys. one of them on each of your knees, as you introduced them to the uncles illegally in the states. unable to travel home to ireland. (f you, america)

I tell you of the other day, as i showed them the footage. 

they have no memories of you, slates wiped clean from the grief.

your voice. oh your voice and your beautiful face. 

many times I've watched it.

but your boys seeing you, I'll never forget. 

"play it again." they ask to see you over & over & over.

your boys are men. men who raise cattle & sheep, bail silage, drive lorries, and date beautiful women. men who have friends that show up for them, as is returned. friends even I have fallen for. and oh, do they love to set me up with their friends.

but men that fall weak at the sight of your face and the sound of your heavenly voice.

they're good, auntie. they're good, but dear god do they need you. 

there's nothing fair about a mum of 6 that withers away at 45. nothing fair at all. but there's nothing fair about much these days. 

I love them for you. they're the image of you, and "proud" does not entail the joy you'd find in seeing them now. 

so I talk to your headstone. cry to it too. walk through your house soaked in memories, a place that has forever felt empty since you left it.

I love the Lord, as did you. I'm jealous He took you. I get angry, because He gets you forever and your boys lost you too young. 

but someday He will share you.

'til then, I'll love your boys and talk to your headstone. 

The 16th of August

there's a panic. it sets in slow and it lifts even slower. 

explaining it is worse than attempting to tell a story, only to get 3/4 of the way through and realize you've left out the key detail.

because you don't even know the key details yourself, so conveying them to someone else is virtually impossible. 

it's this uneasiness, this fear, this spin. this utter convincing that all is unwell, and nothing will ever be right.

it is unreasonable. 

 

I am unreasonable. 

it's an inability to rationalize, to place things in perspective, nor step outside the problem. the scariest bit? an inability to talk yourself off the edge of poor decisions and bad rationale.

it comes like a mist, and it leaves like a receding storm surge. 

for myself, it creeps in at moments of weakness, moments of change and redesign. a convincing that I know not what I've been doing, I know not what to do, and I know nothing of what is coming. 

a debilitating out-of-control that cannot be tamed. 

the church slaps band-aids of "do not be anxious!" and "do you not trust Him?!" that do as much good as a finger-wrap on an amputated limb.

He gave me this, this panic.

this fear. 

this anxiety.

I'd love to swap it like a white elephant Christmas exchange.

The 12th of August

the endless hills have captured me forever. rolling green gridded with walls of stone and studded with the brown, white and black of charolais, belgian blues and freesians. it will own me for the rest of my life.

the white wash, the sheds, the smoke of turf on the fire that winds up to melt into the clouds of white and grey that commonly inhabit the blue. 

the gravestones. plentiful, marking granny & grandad harkin and rooney, & aunties I'd give my life to bring back. everyone I love is buried in this fertile soil, less one. sister, you'll forever be my tie to the states. forgive me for being away for so long. 

the nights. of stories, of jokes, of songs and of life. the shine in the eye of a man just in from the bog will never grow dull.

the men, from leitrim farmers to spoilt southern dubs. wooing with cheeky smiles and quick wit, rooted in a kindness instilled in them by generations of mammies that would allow nothing less.

I don't fall swiftly and I don't fall hard. this blood pumping organ of mine is thick with sinew and fear. yet for Ireland, I've done both.

for her, the answers are always "yes", "more" and "ah we'll have another."