s t r a n g e cousin susan

This time of year is understandably difficult for me and will only continue through May, until the anniversary of my dad’s death passes for the second time. And as I did then, I’ve put myself on a pretty much exclusive aural diet of KaTe Bush, because…well, because. That’s for another post, methinks.

Although I’ve been giving some serious thought to trawling through the Strange Cousin Susan archives from spring 2006 and reposting them, I don’t think I will. It’s more than a little maudlin and would prove of no great value to me, nor to anyone else, although I’m of the mind some of my best writing was done then.

Here. Instead of that, let me reminisce very briefly on an exchange I had with my father the week before he died. He was lying in his bed, pretty much dead and gone but for the shouting, when he called me in. “Mickey Glitter, I need to write a sales order. Can you get me the form?”

This short scene plays over and over in my head and has for almost two years now. This, and a handful of other such times were the last I saw of my dad as I’d known him for thirty-five years. And as such, they are precious to me like almost nothing else in my life is. They are more precious to me than the Rolex watch, the Antarctic certificates, the Navy ribbons…certainly, memories are not tangible; they cannot be held or worn or looked at. They are, as KaTe’s song says, moments time has given as a gift to those who will survive.

But they are much more than that…no one can ever take them away and so I’ll have them for a lifetime. The watch may break. It may get lost or stolen. The pictures may be damaged somehow. The memories, although their clarity may fade over time, will always be in my head. The good memories of that last week continue to comfort me. The bad memories of that last week continue to haunt me. But regardless of comforting or haunting, I never want to lose them.

Some moments that I’ve had

Some moments of pleasure

I think about us lying

Lying on a beach somewhere

I think about us diving

Diving off a rock, into another moment

The case of George the Wipe

Oh God I can’t stop laughing

This sense of humour of mine

It isn’t funny at all

Oh but we sit up all night

Talking about it

Just being alive

It can really hurt

And these moments given

Are a gift from time

On a balcony in New York

It’s just started to snow

He meets us at the lift

Like Douglas Fairbanks

Waving his walking stick

But he isn’t well at all

The buildings of New York

Look just like mountains through the snow

Just being alive

It can really hurt

And these moments given

Are a gift from time

Just let us try

To give these moments back

To those we love

To those who will survive

And I can hear my mother saying

“Every old sock meets an old shoe”

Isn’t that a great saying?

“Every old sock meets an old shoe”

Here come the Hills of Time

Hey there Maureen,

Hey there Bubba,

Dancing down the aisle of a plane,

‘S Murph, playing his guitar refrain,

Hey there Teddy,

Spinning in the chair at Abbey Road,

Hey there Michael,

Do you really love me?

Hey there Bill,

Could you turn the lights up?

©1993 Kate Bush Music Ltd.