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Jun 2017
OH MY PRETTY ONE!
(FOR MY DAD)

He remembers her
a little girl

changing her
(she changing him)

her first steps
to him

unsure
but certain

her laughter
(his crying)

tears
(the sheer pleasure of her)

all she had to do
was exist

to be his happiness.

He remembers
her little kiss

the tiny hand upon his face

remembers all the people
she has ever been

his growing daughter
child to teenager

the young woman
she was becoming

dead
at 18.
Over the funeral days I was looked after by the Fahys. When I returned my Da and Ma were sitting in the living room stock still like a tableau of sorrow personified. Seeing their terrible grief I started crying and my Da cuddled me to him and basically told me this poem of how all the ages of her came to him...how all the times she was resonated like a tuning fork..now a child...now the young woman she was becoming. I cried and cried into him and his tears cried all over me. He stroked my curls and told me; "But you are still my little boy and have to be loved!" And by God he did....day after day for the rest of his life he somehow stashed his sorrow away somewhere....kept moving it from place to place in his mind until he had run out of places and started the terrible process all over again so that he could still let his love flow through. I watched him do it day after day....second by second....and....it was an immense task that had no ending. It was the most terrible and magnificent thing I ever saw another human being do. And my Da was always always that great love no matter what terrible pain he was going through himself. It was like climbing an Everest of Pain morning by morning. No parent should see their child die..it is too sharp a sorrow to have to bear.
Donall Dempsey
Written by
Donall Dempsey  Guildford
(Guildford)   
154
   Marrisa
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