This small green bear,
your name embroidered on its chest,
was never yours. It would have been
our Christmas gift to you,
had you lived a month longer.
The ones you would give
you had already bought,
wrapped, labelled -
thoughtful, organised
to the end,
to the bitter end.
We unwrapped them on the day,
smiled at your kindness,
wept at our loss.

Early Christmas gifts
that you had not organised,
that nobody could have anticipated,
went to strangers: your pancreas,
a life free from daily injections;
your kidneys, two lives free from dialysis;
your liver, divided, to a young girl
and an older lady, who would
quite simply have a life
they had almost given up hoping for.
Your heart, damaged by extended life-support,
not suitable for transplantation,
yielded its valves
to repair the damaged hearts of others.
Even bone and skin were harvested
for people you never knew.
That Christmas you gave hope
to so many people,
and to us the consolation
that they live on because of you,
and that you live on in them.

I threw a pair of socks away today,
an old Fathers' Day present,
with a design of a comical animal
and "You're the best Dad".
But they were old, the socks,
certainly over ten years,
and though I hadn't worn them much,
the years take their toll on the fabric.
Only an old pair of socks
with a big hole in the heel,
but another link to the daughter
who died ten years ago,
and the love she gave.

.
we may be neighbours
or separated by continents and oceans
close in age
or generations apart
brought up each in our own culture
speaking our own language
we have had different experiences
different lives
we are all individuals
each of us unique

but we are all human
we all breathe the same recycled oxygen
passing from one to another
across the face of the earth
we have known love and joy
loss and loneliness
hope and despair
turmoil and peace

we do not have different hearts

The love of a mother for her child
is not the same as the child's love for his mother.
The love of a man for a woman changes
after they are married
from what it was before,
and her love does not correspond in all points with his.
Love between man and woman
is different from the love of boy and girl.

Love can be permanent as the tides, regular, unquestioned,
with no end and no recognisable beginning.
It can come suddenly,
violently,
as a thunderstorm in summer breaks
upon the thirsty earth,
short-lived
except in the memory.

But under any one of these emotions
what is there for us to say?
Only, I love you.

Thoughts can be subdivided, classified, clothed with words.
Words fit feelings only approximately,
and our deepest feelings must often go unclothed.
So when I say I love you
I cannot analyse what I mean.
I only know that I do love you
and hope you understand.

Life is about hands.**

It is about you
Staring at them
Tired but joyful
While your first child lays in your arms
Sleeping and closing a fist around your index.

It is about you
Staring at them
After you hurried into hospital
Holding your mothers hands
And begging her to stay.

It is about you
Staring at them
Trying to keep them still
Yet all they do is shake
And you don't know why
Because  you aren't even nervous.

It is about you
Staring at them
While you introduce yourself to some teenagers
Who are baffled and tell you that they already know you
Because they are your grandchildren
And you try to remember their names.

It is about you
Staring at them
Before you place them around your own neck
Wishing it would be easy to **** yourself
Because the pain is so hard to stand
And you have become so weak.

And it is about your children
Staring at their own hands
While they hold yours
Which are no longer warm and full of life
But cold and stiff.
And they wish they wouldn't hold them for the last time.

Life is about hands.**

It is about you
Staring at them
While holding your first cigarette
And you don't know why you do this
But the smoke makes you feel wild
And you crave to feel alive so badly.

It is about you
Staring at them
When you are together with your lover
And by the time you hold their hand
You forget that this love could never win
And that the both of you could never be real.

It is about you
Staring at them
So drunk your parents would be ashamed
Trying to remember how it was
When your hands felt like they belonged to you
Because right now they don't.

It is about you
Staring at them
Signing the lease you wished for
And independence feels so good,
Finally everything seems to work out for you.

It is about you
Staring at them
When the love of your life
Exchanges rings with you
And you never thought that you could be so happy
Or that you could love someone so much.

...

Life is about hands.**

It is about you,
Staring at them
The first time you burned your fingertips
Because you were so curious
and it was forbidden to touch the hotplate.

It is about you
Staring at them
When they are all blue and numb
From the icy touch of snow
After you had a snowball fight
With your best friend from kindergarten.

It is about you
Staring at them
When you are supposed to write an essay
But they won't write anything down
Because you are not at school with your thoughts.

It is about you
Staring at them
The first time you fell for someone
And your burn for the idea of touching them
But you cannot
Because you don't want to be foolish.

It is about you
Staring at them
When they hold alcohol
After you drank your first beer
And it tasted disgusting
But you are one of the cool ones now.

It is about you
Staring at them
In the dark at 3am
Holding your own hand
Because there isn't somebody else who would do this
And you feel so lonely.

...