I often think of her, though we'd never met,
I know her only through our mails and blogs.
Not someone you could easily forget -
some strange sort of magic in the words she left
like velvet petals delivered to your inbox.
She could weave you colour and calm, joy and peace
from the wonder in the mundane everyday,
in vivid autumn skies, in spring blooming trees,
lacy ice crystals frosting compound leaves.
Proud and glad she called me friend. What can I say?
Each of us is defined by those we love
and each of us is shaped by the ones we grieve.
She's gone, but her words are here and prized above
pearls and rubies, and maybe they'll be enough
to still spin calm. To cherish and relive.
I for one am firmly resolved to hold on
to the residues, the stardust of her words.
She'll never be forgotten though she's gone.
She lived deep and wide and truly extra strong.
I'll keep seeing her in vivid skies, blooms and birds.
 |
| The night before Diwali, which was observed last week, flames are lit in honour of departed souls. Sue loved flowers. And light festivals. |
What can I tell you about Sue Goldberg?
I’ve known Sue for a long time, over a decade certainly,
though I’ve never met her face to face. We found each other through our blogs,
it was so long ago that I forget exactly how and when and who found whom - I
think it was through WEP, Sue read each and every entry there whether or not she participated in the writing. We then proceeded from there to share
poetry, postcards, a love of nature and skyscapes and above all, a sense of
connection that transcended physical and cultural distances - she was from Australia and I was an Indian expat living in the Middle East at the time. We briefly shared
a hemisphere too when I moved to Fiji and she offered to send me books as I
discovered the lack of good bookshops. She herself was a voracious reader of both blogs and books and horrified at the thought of anyone being stranded without adequate reading material. She was invariably kind and she
gave of herself without stopping to check the returns.
She blogged over at Elephant's Child - the title came from being insatiably curious as she said herself. She once told me she was a huge fan of Kipling's writing and I always thought she personified his poem If. 'If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue/Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch'...She had the common touch, an indefinable knack for connection and empathy that she used so well in her volunteer work with suicide prevention - a cause she was passionate about, which she shared on her blog as well. Read about her work at Lifeline here in this post detailing her participation in the Out of the Shadows and into the Light suicide prevention awareness walk just a couple of weeks before she passed. Sue walked for the cause while battling her own terminal disease, because 'this may be my last year' she wrote - she must've known.
She had a powerful writing voice, a searing honesty that was awe inspiring - I remember she wrote for one of the WEP prompts ('Unravelled' I think it was) where she talked about her relationship with her mother with a lack of self pity, a level of unflinching courage and frankness that totally floored me. She revealed her diagnosis this past July with that same unwavering strength, without a trace of bitterness. She was a super special lady. A rare gem.
She enriched my life and my blogging with her thoughtful,
grounded wisdom, her courage, humour and quiet grace in the face of her health
issues, her extraordinary ability to find beauty and calm in everyday
life. Her Sunday Selections were a bright spot in my weekend reading, her
amazing photos of birdlife, garden blooms, public artworks, sunrises, kangaroos, light and balloon festivals dialled down the noise and bother of my own life and invariably lifted my mood. She injected a dose of positivity into everything.
With her gone, my world is a whole lot dimmer, my weekends are not the same, my inbox decidedly less sparkly. No one is going to come across 'The Best Poem Ever' and think 'right, Nila will love this,' and plop it into my inbox on a random morning and transform it from drab to quietly dazzling...With her gone, entire blogland I suspect will be less sparkly.
Today marks a month since her passing. I’m so very grateful that I was part of her virtual circle. Grateful for her friendship, support and many kindnesses through the years.
I will always cherish your memory, Sue. You will be deeply, deeply missed. You often ended your mails with 'buckets of love' - I'm carrying them with me now and wish you endless beauty and colour and peace. Rest easy, my dear friend.
View her funeral service here. This will be available for the next 6+ months.
