I've been listening this morning to Billie Holiday singing that old song and ringing every change possible on the melody and meaning both. I couldn't find a good video of Billie herself, although you can hear the perfect performance here, for instance, as background to a charming personal montage, an example of the tender associations that voice and those words inspire in so many people.
This is for Melanie, who is a long-time friend of POGGE and a friend of mine, and who is grieving. I know that some people don't want to think about grief and especially can't take grief for the wee animals seriously, so those people should go away now.
Melanie wrote to me last night:
I can't believe I'm not seeing him around every corner.
The deepest truest toughest shock -- I still see him lighting his pipe; I still see her bounding towards me; I still see him walking down the street a block ahead of me; I still see him walking in the door. How can the garden be there, and she not in it? How can the door be there, and he not coming home?
Memory and grief -- I am disastrously bad at them m'self, except I believe that it matters to register them, to tell the truth and not just say pretty things. When any companion goes, s/he takes part of our life with her. It friggin' hurts, for sure, Melanie, and it scares as well.
Truly madly deeply, Melanie.
Thank you, skdadl. You've expressed this, our feelings of grief, so well.
You captured grief perfectly skdadl. And even with the passage of time, our lost companions come to us in our dreams and we are together again, if only briefly.