You cannot conceive. Not in your wildest imaginings. What my Freedom Day celebration evening was like.
The venue was wonderful, the menu superb and thanks to the help of all of you, the music spoke to the soul. Lifted the spirit.
But what really made the evening, was the friendship.
4 months ago, my 3 (and only) “best friends” were the husbands of WW’s (Now XWW ) best friends. We only associated because we were brought together through our couple’s evenings. We never met outside of our monthly dinner dates. Other than the occasional discussion on the state of the world economy, some composers, a bit on history and world politics, we shared no common interest. In over 16 years, I can count on my one hand the times that we visited each other’s homes.
I now have friends who visit weekly in our home. Who know my struggles my likes my hopes and fears. Who care about how my day goes, and who are not afraid to ask me for help. Who never even need to be asked, but are there helping, before I realise I needed it.
There were 27 people at my Freedom Day party (Actually 28 if we count the absent but there in spirit). Me, 2PP and then the rest. All dear friends, or better.
The menus were on paper that had a shadow image of Nelson Mandela printed on it. Our icon of freedom (and forgiveness).
The evening opened with the playing of our national anthem “Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika (God bless Africa””. No Freedom Day celebration is complete without it.
It was immediately followed by “Gimme Hope Jo’anna”, one of our most popular struggle and freedom songs. This in turn was followed by “The lion sleeps tonight” (which was actually composed by a black South African chap in 1939). The band just got a little creative and changed it to “the lion parties tonight”.
Through the evening I am sure that we played every song that you folk recommended. The get up and move ones during the breaks between food being served and the more ballad orientated ones, during the meals. The ladies had the words of each song printed out on sheets at each place setting. Everyone mentioned how they knew the songs well but had never really given any thought to the words. All so appropriate to my journey. The ladies had made an effort to arrange the songs so that they told my journey to where I am now.
Ok, so who was there. Well, all the usual suspects that you have come to know through my various posts were there. In addition to those, there was my barber and two other chaps who are his clients and have become my friends. This is a long story that I might share with you some time. I think that I will keep it in reserve for when Lucyjr gets that barber qualification that she has been thinking about.
Then there was Au Pair Tea Lady, her husband and their 2 kids. Also some others from the au pair tea. A woman and her husband with their 3 boys (the older one quite hunky I am told. DD is rather pleased with some of the folk that this experience has brought into our lives). Also a single mom and her lad. It turns out that both of these ladies had been part of MMS’s team in my mushroom meltdown matter as well as part of the “multiverse” experience. DD tells me that they are 2 of the ones she allowed access to me on that day.
There was pre-assigned seating. I had assumed that DD and DS would be on either side of me. Not so. They had every intention of enjoying the evening. Were not going to listen to boring adult talk all night. No, they were at the kids table. I was surrounded by beautify women. We talked, we laughed, we shared.
The evening started with a few of the guests who had known me pre-D Day, like barber, the multiverse ladies and Lad’s mom, saying what they liked most about the pre D Day me. DD and MMS said that the objective here was to show that the pre-A was not nearly as bad as I now regard that version of myself. This was mildly embarrassing. Partly, it felt a little like a wake, with folk saying all these nice things about you. But mainly the embarrassment came from these folk knowing so much about me and I had not even noticed that they existed.
Then there was more music, pleasant conversation and the starters.
At about this point in the evening, I was placed in the most awkward position to have to confide in someone my realisation that I had begun to develop deep feelings for MMS. Unbeknown to me, that same person somehow knew that MMS had similar feelings for me, but she, thinking that my heart lay elsewhere, was suppressing them. You need to know this for later.
I did notice some chatter and giggles between DD and this other mischievous person.
Then, after the serving of the main course, before the desert, DD and MMS stood up and asked for silence. They then began to read a few verses from Lord Tennyson’s “In Memoriam A.H.H”.
Anyone who knows the poem will know that it is rather long! It has 133 cantos of 4 lines each!
The ladies extracted a few, and rearranged them to again describe my journey from heartache to healing. DD was the first to recite, followed by MMS and then, individually, each adult present would spring up from their seat and say a verse. As far as possible, these were carefully chosen to represent at which point that friend became part of my journey.
Sorry that this is so long. I didn’t know which to leave out. (I must mention that other than making changes to some gender references, the words are directly from the poem, but there was considerable rearranging of sequence and bits were edited out); If poetry is not your thing then skip to the last verse.
THE INITIAL HURT
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair..
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
And made me that delirious man
Whose fancy fuses old and new,
And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
And shall I take a thing so blind,
Embrace her as my natural good;
Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should'st fail from thy desire,
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
'What is it makes me beat so low?'
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Which weep a loss for ever new,
A void where heart on heart reposed;
And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
O what to her shall be the end?
And what to me remains of good?
To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
THE SLOW ROAD TO HEALING
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
Than that the victor Hours should scorn
The long result of love, and boast,
`Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.'
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken'd eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.'
Come, Time, and teach me, many years,
I do not suffer in a dream;
For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
THE NEW BEGINNING
But who shall so forecast the years
And find in loss a gain to match?
Or reach a hand thro' time to catch
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,
One writes, that `Other friends remain,'
That `Loss is common to the race'—
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
A happy lover who has come
To look on him that loves her well,
Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell,
So find I every pleasant spot
In which we two will wont to meet,
The field, the chamber, and the street,
And all we met was fair and good,
And all was good that Time could bring,
And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;
Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
When mighty Love would cleave in twain
A shade falls on us like the dark
From little cloudlets on the grass,
But sweeps away as out we pass
To range the woods, to roam the park,
Discussing how their courtship grew,
And talk of others that are wed,
And how she look'd, and what he said,
And back we come at fall of dew.
Again the feast, the speech, the glee,
The shade of passing thought, the wealth
Of words and wit, the double health,
The crowning cup, the three-times-three,
Regret is dead, but love is more
Than in the summers that are flown,
For I myself with these have grown
To something greater than before
At this point DD went and stood alone in the middle of the dance floor and when the room was absolutely quiet again, DD said in a loud, clear voice;
“NOW BE BRAVE
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
And last the dance;—till I retire:”
Now I learned later, that what came next, DD and mischievous friend were actually planning for something quite different but after discovering my little secret, decided that it would be just perfect for this rather.
DD then walked across to me, took me by the hand and led me to the middle of the dance floor. She then winked at Mischievous friend who went up to MMS, whispered something in her ear and led her to the dance floor. MMS was beaming. On her face, an expression of bewilderment, mixed with wonder.
The 2 mischievous girls made us stand, looking at each other and then signalled to the band.
Then the band started playing “take a chance on me”. And the mischievous 2 then said, “so what are you waiting for?”. I took MMS’s hand, did a slight bow, she answered with a curtsy and we danced to cheers from the assembled friends. Half way through, Sunshine shot across the dance floor and scrambled up me until I was hugging her tight against me and dancing with her mom. Have you ever known a man as blessed as me? 2 more wonderful women in my life. We danced the night away.
You can yell rebound and too soon or anything else that you want but this time I ignore you.
