Sunday, January 29, 2006

Shakespeare Sonnet on Grief

In the tv show, Dead Like Me, there was a sonnet quoted:

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Nay, if you read this line
Remember not the hand that writ it
For I love you so
That in your sweet thoughts
I'd be forgot
If thinking of me then should make you woe.

Curious as to whose sonnet this was, I, of course, googled it. Interestingly, I came upon this verse from Shakespeare's “Sonnets” LXXI:

No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line , remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so,
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if (I say) you look upon this verse,
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse;
But let your love even with my live decay:
Lest the wise world should look into your moan,
And mock you with me after I am gone.

I had to laugh, reading the final line of the complete version...

There has been multiple delays in getting Orange Kitty's ashes back from the vet. Did I mention that next time I would handle transport to and from the crematorium on my own? ;-) Anyway... for reasons, I have not yet surmised, this delay has triggered a new bout of grief. I've been crying for Orange Kitty, as well as for my grandmother again. And I have been imagining my grandmother mocking me. She was not overtly sentimental nor demonstrative. So I keep imagining her impatience with my grief. That said, this is also the woman who saved her mother's journal and genuinely enjoyed writing her biography with me. So mock my tears, she may. Or she may not. Though at this point, it's of no concern to her really. These tears are not hers, they're mine.

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