Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
That, we still are.
6 Years ago this month, marks the death of Steve's cousin Ollie, Ollmar Forbes, who was killed trying to part an altercation between his brother and another man at the tender age of 24.
We happened to be in Panama when this took place, and had just come back from a trip to the beach with him, a mere 1/2 an hour before his death I remember chatting with him and asking him, what he was eating, funny how memory works...
He received a knife wound straight to the heart, and died in the boat on the way to the hospital.
I remember hearing the church bells ring 3 times, as they do when somebody had died on the island, and thinking, surely this cannot be, but we just saw him at the beach?
I have never before or since, seen my husband as I saw him that night, they grew up as best friends and brothers, more then first cousins.
Imani was a wee one at just 3 months old at the time, I remember dressing her in a tiny black onesie for his funeral, and hubby helping to carry the coffin.
Here he is in this photo, holding baby Zion,
whom he would call loudly "Lyon, come Lyon! when he spotted him around town
He was a beautiful boy, shy and tender hearted.
He left behind a son, just exactly Zions age, Shannon.
The boys play together sometimes, oblivious to the ties that bind them.
Day of the dead is almost here,
it is to us a time to remember our loved ones who have passed, and it has seen us building an altar, and talking about, and remembering our friends and family who have passed before us.
As my mother sais: the dead are but a whisper away, on the other side of that veil,
it is good to think of them sometimes, as they are always closer by then we think.
.
I am but waiting for you,
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well.
