Guests

I met Frog when I was 24, and we were together for 44 years (until his sudden death in January this year). In other words, nearly two-thirds of my life. Is it any wonder, I keep telling myself, that I’m now struggling? Frog was my life and now I have to make a new one from scratch without him. At the same time, dealing with grief and a host of other emotions brought up by the turmoil.

A friend passed on to me this poem, by the thirteenth-century Persian poet Rumi. I carry it with me.

The Guest House

​This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

​

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

​

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

​

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

​Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond.

It’s helpful to me to remember that emotions – even if terrifying and often almost too much to bear ‒ are only guests, that they have a purpose and that each will leave in their own time. Thank you Trish.

Talking of guests, I shall mention again my wonderful brothers and sisters who have been taking it in turns to stay with me. Since Frog’s death, they’ve never left me alone for more than two weeks and each visit is a respite, a chance to catch up with eating and sleeping and – occasionally – to feel almost normal.

Last week it was the turn of my sister A, and we walked together to a nearby Iron Age hill-fort which Frog and I had visited for the first time during lockdown in January last year. I wrote about it in my blog here.

Then it was dusted with snow.

The hill-fort, a circle of banks that once contained an Iron Age village

Frog and Ellie walk to an edge to admire part of the 360-degree view

Frog explores the ditch all the way round the outside

This time, A and I had bright spring sunshine.

Ellie and me at the hill-fort last week

Both times, we had the place to ourselves.

And here, just for fun, is a picture of Ellie waiting for her supper at the end of a hard day's walking.

Ellie, never more intent than when food is in the offing

Thanks to A for the last two pictures and for enabling me at last to update my Welcome picture (top right)