Rosie's
Memorial Conventicle
Rosemary, my wife of nearly
forty years, died on 28 September 2002.
We had been told the diagnosis
of uterine cancer on Christmas Eve 2001. A hysterectomy was expected
to remove all cancerous tissue. It didn't. Chemotherapy was unsuccessful.
East Cheshire Hospice's
excellent palliative care eased her passage from this world.
Rosie had some good spells
in the summer. Here she is on 24th July 2002 at the Queen's visit,
to King's School, Macclesfield, to unveil this plaque and supporting
stone marking the school's 500th anniversary.
There was time, if not inclination,
to discuss some things. Like her funeral service of celebration
at St Peter's Prestbury, and where her ashes should reside.
The site she chose for her
final resting place was on a ridge in the Lake District.
She was not the world's
best hill-walker, but one bright sunny day she had steeled herself
to climb the steep side of the ridge ...
... and received her due
reward in a magnificent view down the length of Windermere that
opened up beneath her feet.
Unfortunately, as these
pictures show, the bank of haze lying over Windermere precluded,
on this day, an adequate reproduction of the views that had so
impressed her.
The northerly view was clearer,
however, with the white dot of the Kirkstone Inn just visible
at the head of the pass, between Red Screes on the left and the
more distant mass of Caudale Moor on the right.
In spite of the sunshine
and the haze there was a blustery bitter cold wind on the ridge.
Nobody was hanging around on the summit,
which made it easier for Mark and I to locate a suitable site.
Against the force of the
wind, loose stones retain the roses and Rosie's picture with her
ashes. Time and weather will erase all trace of this temporary
shrine.
An apt metaphor of our brief
ephemeral existence.
....
The stiffening breeze encouraged
no lingering and only hurried shots for the record.
Rosemary Patricia Turner
(nee Mitchell) 1941-2002.
To Daffodils
Fair daffodils, we weep to
see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attained his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having prayed together, we
Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay
as you;
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you or anything.
We die,
As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
Robert Herrick
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