Remember

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REMEMBER

by: Christina Rossetti

EMEMBER me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember and be sad.

I always loved this poem and I happened to chance upon it today by accident, when I was looking at old journals. I didn't understand it back then. But, somehow, it makes sense now. I don't know why. Maybe because I'm older. Seen more. Felt more.

For every moment of happiness, I worry about the next moment of sadness, when things take a turn for the worse, and when doubts begin to creep in and although I try to keep them out, they just keep coming and I begin to wonder if the last perfect moment was just some beautiful dream and not real at all.

How do you hold on to a moment and make it last? Why do memories come back to haunt?

"One of the nice things about looking at a bear is that you know it spends 100 per cent of every minute of every day being a bear. It doesn't strive to become a better bear. It doesn't go to sleep thinking, 'I wasn't really a very good bear today'. They are just 100 per cent bear, whereas human beings feel we're not 100 per cent human, that we're always letting ourselves down. We're constantly striving towards something, to some fulfilment."

Save as Draft -Stephen Fry