The goodbye you deserved

It took a long time to get to say goodbye to Mum, (wendyvp.) She lived so far away and family relations were frayed due to the stress of the grief of losing her. Family and friends in far north Queensland had a memorial immediately but us children were left to wait a good five months until step-dad made his way down to Melbourne. In the end we let her go just the way she had always planned. She loved being up north but in the end she came home. I always recall her saying she wanted to come back as a river rock in her next life. (I always told her that wasn’t how it worked – a river rock is inanimate, but what do I know?) I miss her so much. The other day I found one of her tops. It still smelt like her.

You have settled into the depth of the river:
A little lighter, a little freer,
than the gold dust beneath you.
That first, grey day we spilt you out,
you clouded up,
curled around,
clung – for a minute – to the base of a rock …
then billowed out into the cold and gentle rapids:
The colour of a winter dawn.

Now I know Mum, that when it is quiet in the bush except for the warm rushing wind through the eucalpytus trees and the rustle of birds or animals, that you are there in the peace, you are in everything and you are happy in it. If only I was at the place that I could be happy with you.

Love Melissa