GHPB: Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

I once had a telephone convesation with Ester and she heard Four Weddings and a Funeral in the back ground. Just to show how much she loved the movie Ester recited the dialoge one line in front of actors. It was a strange thing to hear Ester say something just before it came out of the TV. Hear is the peom from the film that she loved so much.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message he Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Belinda Hirsh: A picture of a butterfly in purple.

To Ester,

I am sad because I will miss you and because I wanted to show you all sorts of beautiful things here in cornwall, and take you to special places and let you share in the goodness here. I am sad because you have been there for me and now I have to learn to live without your lovely words, without your lovely voice, without the pleasure of an evening spent chatting with you.

Remember our conversation about God? About how when someone you love and who loves you dies, you can still feel the love there and you still know that that person loves you and has your back even though they are no longer here? And how that feeling of love, we felt that must be the person's soul still living, and that all the souls connect together to form a vast expanse of pure love and that must be what God is.

Now all that is left of you is your soul but that's ok because that's the important bit. That is the pure love with the background noise removed; no bitterness, no regret, no guilt, no shame, no jealousy, no self-doubt, no secrets, no hiding. Just love.

When I first found out how depressed you were, that time we talked on the phone and you were crying, I drew a picture of a butterfly in purple and I put it on my bedroom wall - a butterfly because that is your animal like a hedgehog is mine, and purple because that is your colour like orange is mine. I entitled it 'a unique purple butterfly far far away that I am thinking of' and next to it I wrote:

"love can fly and love can float,

love can swim and love can bounce from cloud to cloud to cloud to you.

it's all in purple and it's all for you,

it's all in purple and it's all for you."

It looks like a poem but it was a prayer, and I stood touching it on my wall and I prayed it over and over, hoping the love would reach you. Maybe it did, I don't know. Only last week, I wrote again. I drew another purple butterfly and I wrote, "it's still in purple and it's still for you. stay purple forever."

It doesn't matter whether you will stay purple forever but it matters that you stay you forever, in whatever form that takes. It may be as a soul or a spirit or something external, but it's just as ok if it is just in our memories and in what you have taught us. Maybe a soul is just a memory anyway, but it's a powerful one.

At the moment I am sad because I will have no more of you, but I am going to try to keep those butterflies up on my wall, I am going to try to keep you on my wall and I will touch them and pray my little prayer for you and maybe you will receive the love I am sending you.

Thank you for being my friend.
Thank you for all your love and support and for all your belief in me.

All my love,
Bini

David Mitchell: flatulence... Baruch Hashem...

I don't know how to write this - Ester you were always the one who played best with words!

Ester you started out as my student when I was your fieldworker back in Cardiff and within minutes you became my friend and my teacher and my student - and I became yours. We shared a deep love for Judaism, for music, nusach, niggunim, cooking, baking and port. You taught me that "there is no joy without wine" (Talmud, Pesachim 109a) but also so so much more!

Ester...

I always loved your voice and your naughty grin.

I always loved your humour and ability to sit there for endless hours making daft noises and smart comments.

I always loved that you did deep and meaningfuls.

You always had room in your soul for someone else's joys and burdens.

You always had a song for every occasion and a blessing for everything - every bodily function was a blessing and you excelled at both publicising them and celebrating them.

You always had a lot of love to give - I'll always remember your face after a good night out.

I always knew you well enough to know that you had secrets and demons.

I always knew you well enough to know that I only knew part of you.

I always knew you well enough that we could spend 6 weeks apart and then meet up and feel like we'd been there the whole time.

You always were the one to defy the rules - while others would get nervous, you'd get a mischievous determined grin on your face.

You always were the one to speak out against injustice and support the needy and the fallen.

You always were the one to turn up late, to flutter in and out and to make my life more purple.

I always will love you.

I always will miss you.

I always will sing and bless my bodily functions.

Always yours

Bitchell xx

Debbie Young: Sikhing and finding

What words can possibly ever be enough. We first met on summer camp aged 10 and 12, where she claims she was incredibly insensitive (tennis ball and jumper, nuff said!) though that's not a memory of mine! We really became friends 5 years ago when Reform Students reunited us, and we just clicked together. She used to say I drove her mad because she so loved to disagree with people, but we always seemed to see eye to eye. We often understood each other without having to even say it. It's rare for us to find those kind of connections, though I suspect Esty had them with many people. She was beautiful from every angle, inside and out, even first thing in the morning when she was impossible to wake up and her hair took over. I wish she had listened when we told her. But she wasn't having any of it. She always knew just what to say, or do. At my grandfathers shiva, she didn't ask what she could do to help, she just did it. She elected herself tea server, and ensured everyone had a cuppa despite the numbers. In dialogue, too, she always knew how to hear the other, and how to make herself heard, in a language the other could absorb. Her ways with words often left me smiling, from the insane sms's to the word plays, the cards covered on every corner in tiny purple writing, the nicknames and poetry. Angela offered severe violence if I didn't put this poem up on the blog, but I also offer it as a beautiful memento of a beautiful life, which has left a gaping hole. Ester wrote this after one of the intefaith events we attended together:

Sikhing and finding,
Paths Chris-chrossing,
As you and I slam
Through Sala'am slalams,
Ohming and ahhing,
Yinging and Yanging,
Till we meet aJain -
Dunno where or Zen;
Pray we B oK...
So, Bahai'i-Bahai'i,
And aJew aJew.

Bye Esty, I am less without you, and the world is so much poorer without you, so we will all have to love the world, and each other, that little bit more, to make up for it.
love you always. DD