At least until the transhumanist dream becomes a reality, which according to one leading modern philosopher may be never, we will cling on to whatever we can that reminds us of our loved ones.
Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" is an epic poem written in the early 14th century, divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.
Inferno:
Purgatorio:
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Now online, Paul Hillier et al's Proensa interpretations of the troubadours have long enchanted me - although perhaps not some of the dinner party guests on whom I inflicted the vinyl version at various times during my more earnest past.
Is it really as long ago as the mid 1980s that I specialised in Medieval Provençal and wrote my dissertation on the amour de loinh of Peire Vidal?
Rupert Gordon and I were the only students at Edinburgh to choose the option in many a year (perhaps since the 1950s, judging by the stamps in some of the books I borrowed!), and having been back in the George Square library many times since when two of my daughters were studying at Edinburgh, I've wondered whether anyone else has borrowed (m)any of these books since?
Four decades ago I left Aubagne, without any photos - which I sometimes regret, but I was young and stubborn and romantic and weird - but with images imprinted on my mind, and maybe my heart, forever.
Indeed, over the intervening years, these images have grown much stronger in relative terms, and moved closer and closer to the front and centre of the painting of my life, even as other, once seemingly permanent formative experiences have gradually faded....probably the reminiscence bump in action.
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I share below (without comment...which is a personal act that belongs in the real, not the virtual world), an evolving, far from exhaustive, but from an emotional point-of-view, highly illustrative and authentic selection of my favourite poetry and lyrics...
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And it's a battered old suitcase to a hotel someplace
And a wound that will never heal
- from Tom Traubert's Blues, by Tom Waits
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(In my sleep I dreamed this poem)
Someone I loved once gave me
a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand
that this, too, was a gift
- The Uses of Sorrow, by Mary Oliver
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Those who study the stories and myths we tell point out that they often share remarkable similarities. They very often involve a separation from home, a test of character, and then a return home with new wisdom or strength. One of these transformative trials comes when we lose someone we truly and deeply love. Those who have known grief understand something more about life. When we suffer the loss of someone we love, we know what it means to be left alone and behind.
So come, my friends, be not afraid.
We are so lightly here.
It is in love that we are made;
In love we disappear