In an email just ten days ago, about a thorny computer problem, I wrote to Annie, "you are not alone" not knowing those words might resonate today. My favorite poem of hers shows how kind and loving she was. Lucky for us, her poems will live always, even though I'll miss her terribly.
Shadow
by Ann Drysdale
Shadow, I waited for you at the station,
watched you approaching before you saw me.
A stranger brought you down on a wheelchair,
pink coat unmissable in the glass lift,
emerging like a fairy-ex-machina
onto the overpopulated stage.
I was appalled at the smallness of you;
so much less of you than I was expecting.
For a moment before you spotted me
I felt the friendship in me run towards you
to wrap your small bones tight in your pink shadow,
feel with my fingers for the secret key
between sharp shoulderblades and turn it, turn it
till it met the familiar resistance,
then put you gently down, set you a-going,
clap with you happily as you repeated
the ceaseless twitter, the two-footed hop
of the happy child that is still inside
the little lady-doll whose fingers fidget
on the pale leather handbag in her lap.
And then the recognition. Your old smile —
“Ah, there you are!” And I was on my knees —
“Yes, darling, here I am” — beside the wheelchair,
my arms enfolding all there was, my hands
meeting in grief, because there is no key.
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