November 2009
5 Little ducks went swimming one day
Over the hills and far away.
Mother Duck said, “Quack, quack, quack, quack!”
But only 4 little ducks came back.
- and so it goes until all the little ducks have gone – but, gladly, eventually returning to their mother.
Perhaps you have experienced the feeling (as would Mother Duck) as dependants have disappeared from day to day life as they go off to study, work or even emigrate. The big empty space in one’s life is hard to describe to another person but many of us will have felt the desolation and worry concerning how ‘they’ will cope, but even more so of how we ourselves will cope. This particularly applies when children leave home for the first time. However, as Kahlil Gibran says in his book, ‘The Prophet’, “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.” Your love and good wishes go with them along with the hope that the values that you have tried to teach them will provide a strong base within their new lives.
Over recent years we have found several people from long ago lives returning into our orbit. Friends, now pensioners, seldom seen over the years, have become a more regular part of our lives. These are people with whom Frank and I went to school as eager 4-year old tots. Until teenage we mostly moved as one body, marrying within the group with the odd addition from the outer world. Since we, as the longest married, celebrated our Golden Wedding in 2007, we have melded together once more as a group – and how the years have fallen away. “Do you remember when….?” - followed by gales of laughter is the usual format for our gatherings. One can imagine the shrieks of horror when Primary School photographs are produced.
So, for the love we bear our children and dependants; for the love we have for friends – those of the present and those from the past; for the love we have, and will always have in our hearts for those who have gone before; we should be glad of the chance to have loved and be loved by our fellows or whatever society, age or race.
Again from Kahlil Gibran, "Live gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love."
Val Butterworth