Letting go

 

One year ago

Linked chain 

Pressure like none before  

Crowded cluttered 

This doctor daughter

Breaking the news 

Predicting

Secret pains spoken 

Old ones poured into journals 

Telling Me not to cry! 

Asking Me not to get upset! 

Your mind sharp

Lapsing into Arabic 

Asking the vicar if he was from the Church at the “Rass El  Shareh”

Sleeplessly failing 

To keep the fragile shell intact 

Anger erupting  

Running in the rain 

Soaked under the tree in the cemetery 

Screaming at the sky 

Cursing whatever 

Out there allows such agony 

Tears spent 

I return

“What is today?” you ask

“Why does dying take so long? ” you ask 

In under a week you were ready to let go

In under a year we have all let go…..

One click eternal

Don’t read too much into it 

It is a most extraordinary time 

Ample alternative explanations 

The edge there all along 

I would have jumped 

Even if not pushed  

Lifted for a second 

Off the ground 

Light and lightheaded 

Smile so wide

More than I have for half year or more

Looking back so far back 

Thirty years or more 

Innocence and indifference 

Choices and decisions 

When I thought I could have it all 

Laughter bubbling up inside 

And then 

A moment when my stomach is left behind 

As I stop....then fall.....faster and faster 

Panic overcomes me 

I flail clutching at hope eternal 

And fall some more 

Just before I crash 

“Hi”

A posy

A warm feeling 

I accept hope eternal

I sway on the edge again 

I see the ravine now 

And it is oh so tempting 

Our Nuha

 https://www.c-span.org/video/?181127-1/baghdad-diaries-womans-chronicle-war-exile&fbclid=IwAR12p6uuxWRCx_M78PgbUUZkigzIQSK9GW7KCNxlW9bTqWgH9YfYCK-OLM4

Shared by her sister in law and copied here 

How long ago this was 17 years already 

There is something so very different about a video a recording of the voice the intonation the send of humour even in the darkness 

Ah Nuha..... rest in peace