It was exactly 10 years ago today that my mother, Joan McGuire, died on her 79th birthday.
I had a ticket from Ottawa to Halifax on the earliest flight that day and then a long drive to Cape Breton where she had been living with my sister, Sandra. I knew she was near the end, but I phoned when I got out of Halifax and my sisters gave me the sad news that she’d died in the early morning hours.
When I got there, the family gathered in the room where my mother still lay in bed. She had left an envelope that was not to be opened until after her death.
She loved poetry and nature, among so many other things. Inside the envelope was a poem she’d written. It fell to me to read it. I managed to keep my composure that time, I think because I was still in shock, but there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
LEGACY
When I go
I leave for you
these things I’ve loved —
Sunlight dancing on a summer lake,
or shattering crystal through winter spruce on a diamond-glitter ski-swooshing day.
Haunting cries of wild geese returning, or departing.
Smell of new-mown hay.
Late summer meadows lit by goldenrod and asters… Wind singing through pines, or setting aspen leaves atremble. Salt-spray lashing faces by darkening wrathful seas,
and, with luck, a piper playing
somewhere, afar in a fog.
Stories and laughter round a winter fire. Beowulf, and blood-red wine.
I have loved these, and more.
And when I say goodbye for the last time, I’m not really gone
as long as I leave you
these things I’ve loved.
But above all I leave for you always
my love