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Showing posts from July 24, 2012

When Words Are Not Enough - More Conversations with Neveen

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We all have those moments, when no matter how long we plan or carefully put words together the result is not enough for what we intend to say. Sometimes this is when someone is ill or has died and we struggle to let others know that we share their grief or anxiety and despair. often we have had similar experiences ourselves so it's natural to want and to be able to give comfort. Today I am not only lost for words but also lost as to how to feel and respond to a situation. Neveen is seventeen years old, one of five daughters of my ex's sister and brother in law. She and her friends and family watch tv, movies, chat on the internet and listen to music.She has her own likes and dislikes of most things, as any teenager. She has her own views and opinions and mostly these are quite different from her parents views, also as any teenager. Neveen reads a lot - poetry, fiction, whatever - and she also writes.  Perhaps this is why I feel an affinity with her which goes beyond

Letting Go - 250 words

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T he last of the sunset lingers behind the hill glowing orange as the sky darkens. Sitting beside your bed, I reach out and brush my fingertips onto the paper thin skin covering your cheek bone. I will you to respond to me, just a flicker of an eyelid or a ghost of smile. But you lie still and silent and a chill creeps into my soul. My memory does a rewind to the day we climbed that hill, laughing and stumbling as we tugged at each others clothes, trying to make the other go slower. You reached the top first and stood there arms above your head, waving and smiling as I collapsed, breathless onto the ground beside you. “Look, down there ! “ My eyes followed your pointing finger to the field below us where a small child held onto the string of a coloured kite. The kite swooped and swirled pulling the string taut then loose as the child struggled to stop it escaping. We watched spellbound, willing the kite to stay aloft. Then, in an instant, it was free of it’s teth