Leanne, your name sounds softer now, your loss Echoing still, and making space between stars A little greater. But spaces are to cross Not linger in. They are not prison bars Nor vast and empty soundless, sightless holes. Endings were just stage-light that dare our souls Live larger like that fine actress you are In whose voiceless gesture is that power Varying sadness so much, it’s not far Ever from remembered laughter. Shower Sorrows with your huge heart. Let wiser thoughts Into our minds so like that crowds you pleased No rumination turns joy to mere naughts, Over mere crosses. Though memory teased Us into thinking you gone, in our hearts Runs wild still those joys you put there. It starts Heavily that grief we feel. That is how, Even now we are bound to largely feel As hearts are still bound to that painful wheel, Regarding loss as winning. Do not seal The deal that devil wants us so to do. So Leanne’s life goes on among us few.
When our dear friend Claire, whom we knew as a child, asked Geoff and me to write a few words for her dear Mum, we felt so humble. Geoff misses his happy calls with his friend, who, whatever she was passing through left a smile on his heart, passed to mine when he spoke her weighty words of how life must be lived back to me.
I can’t ever forget meeting Leanne in a class I taught at Roehampton where she was a learner, but less just a ‘learner’ than a ‘giver’ – of wide intelligence in group discussions where she stunned a room with words on Virginia Woolf that blended that great writers words with hers. But most of all she shared generosity of self as a badge to show others it was possible. We both saw her act in a play in the great Hall at Whitelands College; a near wordless role that stole the show from those who had what they thought were enacting weightier roles and made the play’s meaning shine through, despite her colleague actors wordy weight of selves intruding. We cannot now even remember the play’s name, though her smile in it lingers – perhaps always will. Definitely will.
We used to visit her in her home in Putney, and she us in Brentford and then Isleworth when we lived near; her lovely daughter Claire seeming to us like the gift that Leanne always thought and felt, so deeply, she was to her. We saw Leanne play small roles in The Bill, a police show on TV long since passed, and laughed at stories of her time on ITV’s Crossroads. She shared our joys and sorrows – and created light in our lives whichever of the phases we and she, and her loved daughter were living through.
I cannot imagine the pain Claire is going through just now, neither can Geoff, but we can guess. We only know that she will survive that because Leanne wants that still – she was so proud of her daughter’s talents, like hers, and ability to find joy, perhaps greater than Leanne’s, even through dark times, and share it with others. The acrostic poem above has first letters for each line that read down the page reads: ‘Leanne lives in our hearts’.
Latterly Geoff and I concocted a friendship poem about the wings of friendship for another friend, her name Joanne, who shared our pain at Leanne’s physical loss to us. I don’t want to think about the dreadful cruelty of the social services provision that trapped our dear friend in unsafe conditions, for Leanne would not have wanted that, for as we knew, she had traversed many dark halls of pain in her life and come through. She always will. But Claire had to witness all that, and her pain continues. We can only feel for her.
Our dear Leanne knew the poem Easter Wings by George Herbert, and loved it, of which my concrete wings poem is a poor secular reflection. Leanne returned to her faith in later life. I think for her these are like her Angels’ Wings. The friendship lives on in our love for Claire. Keep hear, dearest, in these dark times.
Geoff added these words:
My thoughts of Leeanne are full of love. We had weekly phone calls and put the world to right. I do remember her being upset as, from her window. she could see the gardeners mowing the lawns and cutting all the daisies heads off. I promised to keep a corner of our front garden for her. We call it Leeanne’s corner and I moved a stone birdbath to the side of it. I’ll make sure all the daisies are allowed to grow without mowing.
I was able to speak to her from her hospital bed and I’ll aways remember her last words to me; ‘See you in heaven’. Yes Leeanne you will and we can pick up where we left off and put things to right there as well.
Love Geoff
And of course love from both of us
Steven & Geoff
I feel the strength of friendship in your beating wings, I know that friendship helps support those things That lessen pain. To me it brings Joy, even when it sings Sadly, what springs, Nay!, rings Out Like sound With loving bound. No harm will me confound. But guard me, as if hope’s elkhound Asleep, yet senses cast that bind around With safety, friendship’s flower rooted in firm ground.
Steve_Bamlett_blog 