Lettice.
It's my strange 'talk to the dog' voice.
As I think about the day when she is no longer with us.
I realise my 'this' voice will go, along with all the phrases I use.
Looking back, shortly after my mother died just weeks after Aaron was
born, I used to say to myself
'My lovely MUM!'
It somehow, after a traumatic time comforted me.
Always, as Aaron grew up I would put him to bed
with the words
'Night night, God bless, kiss from Grandma!'
Even occasionally now texting he will sign off with
X from Grandma.
Calling Rowan, the goat and the pet lambs off the hill
by the croft I would call...
What? Do you know I've forgotten...
it wasn't so much the words as the voice.
They would reply, and from far off I'd see them gambolling home.
For Tess, on the farm, I had certain sayings,
apart obviously from 'Away and Come by'
The ones to make her go around the cow shed, instead of through...
I've forgotten... and the voice I used... gone.
A cheerful soul... not me I'm afraid
The stupid, silly things I say to Lettice.
Simon used to say in his cut crystal public school voice...
'She's just a dog!'
I can hear him say it now.
I often say to Ted after I've talked some of my standard
utter tosh to Tish.
'I make a fool of this dog don't I?'
Sage old soothsayer that he is, his words soothe.
I wouldn't mind but she's stone deaf.
The awful thing to me is, that all this rubbish I say
to her will die with her.
Now in the quiet of the morning, with her outside,
I can't think of even one of the stupid things I say.
When I start talking to my teddies
that's the time to be afraid, very afraid!
I was cheerful once. It wasn't much fun. Shan't be doing it again any time soon.
ReplyDeletep.s. I talk to everything; I apologise to furniture and walls when I bump into them, I say hello to trees and I think whole conversations to the universe... Wibble.
Ian, I love all the things you write, the flights of fancy, the rants, your love of dogs sometimes in preference to man, the occasional sensible. Frankly I don't believe you were cheerful once, I think you have cheerful written through you like Brighton through rock.
DeleteWibble is good... a cranium safety valve, like the plug in a barrel of real ale.
LLX
I know & love that photograph so I know it isn't you!
ReplyDeleteThe lovely thing is, all the things you say & the funny voices (I'll bet you did the full cast of characters when you read to Aaron) won't die when Lettice does or even when you do, but only when everyone who knew you dies. Some of them will even linger down the ages in things your great, great great grandchildren say.
That's immortality of a kind!
My old dad used to say (here we go... exactly as you say Nilly!) Immortality is, you live on through your children, their children and... on through the ages. Folk without kids? They may be the ones that hang about scaring the shit out of us, exactly as, so wonderfully portrayed in Ian's last blog post.
ReplyDeleteLLX