Jan 3rd,2019- Mystic/Magic – Chris Ritchey

Another year dawns, this past one has not been pleasant for the most part. No further answers to  the question we all really  want to know what happens after our body  fails. Is there an “essence of life” that continues? The life “energy”  that makes us unique to  ourselves , can that be destroyed , gone, obliterated ?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/energy-can-neither-be-created-nor-destroyed/

Questions that have been asked and answered in  various religious beliefs for a few thousand years. But , when you  get right down to  it you  won’t really  know till your own body  fails. YOU  KNOW,  my  darling Chris, my  mum –  now knows.

Mum and Balcony

Mum, who  lived a full 99 years, a voracious reader, travelled , lived in three different countries, met hundreds of people of varying walks of life. She would listen to  the religious leaders, watch them on the Sunday  shows, in her youth  questioned them at length.  In her last days she would talk to  the Hospice Nurses as to  their belief as to  what would happen but she had no  answers in even those last days .

As I  sat beside her , holding her hand , watching and trying to  ease her final “body life” moments , there was no  answer for me, she and her  life energy  slipped quietly  away.  The same with  you  -although hooked up  to  machines , but by  the time they  disconnected you  I already  knew you  had left hours before.  Somehow, a mother knows when her child is no  longer with  her, at least I  did.

Photo source https://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/the-story-of-fairy-rings-has-always-intrigued-me.

We all so  need the mystic and magic, hope that there is more somehow to  our world, my  thoughts segued to  my  earliest beliefs and tiny  child’s  belief in fairies.

I lay  awake in today’s very  early  hours, wracking my  poor brain as to  who  first told me about magic and fairies and a world beyond that had nothing to  do  with  religion, that came later when my  mother would drag me to  church  in Canada.

I couldn’t for the life of me remember , it was as if I  had always known about the possibility  of a  “magical” realm I so  wanted to  believe in. As a tiny  tot I would play  for hours in the  garden rockery ( rock gardens were a staple part of the garden and the place where fairies loved to  dwell) building fairy  homes, looking for fairy  circles  in the morning dew, positive they  existed and wanting to  catch  a glimpse. I told my  children about fairies and then my  grandchildren ( before they  got to  the age when they  think I  am dotty).

 

I went back in my  mind , trying so  hard to  remember my  grandmothers telling me stories of fairies . No,  the one used to  recite romantic and adventurous poems  and tell stories of unrequited love. Mum’s mother , tired and worn from life, would tell me stories of the happenings of her children, my  father- science fiction, space aliens and travels to  the stars. My  mum never told me fairy  stories, so who? And then it dawned , my  reprobate of a “grandfather”. A memory  from the mist, taking down a saucer of milk   whilst everyone in the house was asleep, woken from my  tiny  bed, slipper-less feet, cold on the  tiled kitchen floor quietly  putting the saucer down for the hedgehogs  as they  carried the fairies to  dance in the moonlight.

I  realize now, he was drunk again probably , he was an inebriate that is for certain. I supposed going through  the trenches in France and being a professional soldier he may  have had some issues we would recognize today.

Fairies a gift from Chris

All I do  know , is that as angering and annoying he was to  the rest of the family  and his children- HE was the one who  came home with  kittens and the odd baby rabbit or two   in his pockets for me, flowers from his flowers shop , never were his pockets empty , little gifts.  He taught me to  love the flowers in the garden and only  pick certain ones  , to  leave the blue bells ( the fairy  flowers) in the woods.

As I  lay  there in the half light of a New year  my  mind  wandered to  when he was he was in hospital, I  had only  been married a few weeks, we went to  see him . He woke long enough  to  squeeze my  hand and say  ”

I  can go  now- “maggot” ( his nickname for me )  I  have seen you. 

We left the hospital and on the short ride home I could still feel the pressure of his hand  and I  knew before we got to  my  Aunt’s house he had gone without her having to  tell me.  He had said goodbye  and with  him went his “magic”, given to  me only ???  and a memory of an old man , not well loved who shared  a bit of the mystique of this world.

One memory  triggers another and I was back in your hospital room  your stats were fluctuating , nurses and techs adjusting machines and then your hand squeezed mine so  hard – I  didn’t know what you  were trying to  tell me but I think  I  do  now……. you  were saying goodbye ……..

But then the magic of you  continues……….