Beauty



The bearded iris in bloom --
the leaves newly opened --
she cannot see these --
and her beauty we cannot see --
This is how we are all diminished
and almost crushed




Pictures

She left me notes that said:

I O U 20 hugs

Love,

Elizabeth

or pictures made with ink and paper

for example





























This is one of my favorite pictures of Lizzy and me the year Richard had a bumper crop in cucumbers. It is in a frame that she decorated with sea shells she had collected on her travels.

How Dina Aunty relished her memories. Mummy and Daddy were the same, talking about their yesterdays and smiling in that sad-happy way while selecting each picture, each frame from the past, examining it lovingly before it vanished again in the mist. But nobody ever forgot anything, not really, though sometimes they pretended, when it suited them. Memories were permanent. Sorrowful ones remained sad even with the passing of time, yet happy ones could never be re-created—not with the same joy. Remembering bred its own peculiar sorrow. It seemed so unfair: that time should render both sadness and happiness into a source of pain.

> From A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry