A Short Note on Beginings and Endings; Forget Me Not

Should sorrow cloud thy coming years, And bathe thy happiness in tears, Remember, though we’re doom’d to part, There lives one fond and faithful heart, That will forget thee not.

Life is constantly full of twists and turns, of beginnings and endings, final or otherwise.

I often think there is a level of intimacy in every ending. Those relationships in which you never speak with a person again, whether that is a friend you knew for years, a romantic partner, or simply someone you shared a laugh with one day. They all matter, in life you never move on. You are the sum of the parts of every person you have ever known and you will always carry them with you.

I find myself often thinking, do these people think about me? Do they know I still think about them?

You open up Facebook, on one of those rare occasions, to see they are still there. You go to their profile, and it’s a time capsule of who you knew. The memories you made together come rushing back - the length or intensity of which does not matter.

Even though it has been years, you still remember their birthday, their cats name, or simply just their favourite TV show

The memories are always millimeters beneath the skin; are you cursed to never forget them or blessed to be able to remember them?

You might even feel the intense urge to send them a message, just a simple hello. Yet you don’t; a bad ending or simply time itself holds you back.

Maybe one day?

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In the last week, I have had a few beginnings and endings. I moved to a new area of London, living with a family, learning all their little idiosyncrasies. But at the same time, I left a flatmate I had lived with for two years. Yet in time, I will fondly remember all those personal details you get when you live with someone.

Earlier in the week, I also broke up with someone I was seeing, likely never to speak with her again. Yet in years to come when her favourite flower blooms I will remember the way her eyes shone in the morning sun.

Endings are little deaths of the person you knew. You have to live with their memory often sweetened with the passage of time. I find this quite a bitter realisation, as you never communicate those thoughts in the lasting silence between them and you. You never truly know what someone thinks of you.

How lovely it would be to live in those small, beautiful moments of life: a laugh between friends in the wee hours, the brief shared smile, the raging party. How human it all is to soothe yourself with the past, to the detriment of the present and usually the future.

Yet there comes a day when you look fondly on those memories, not in loss but in love that they happened with the people they happened with.

When in the morning’s misty hour,
When the sun beams gently o’er each flower;
When thou dost cease to smile benign,
And think each heart responds with thine,
When seeking rest among divine,
Forget me not.

When the last rays of twilight fall,
And thou art pacing yonder hall;
When mists are gathering on the hill,
Nor sound is heard save mountain rill,
When all around bids peace be still,
Forget me not.

When the first star with brilliance bright,
Gleams lonely o’er the arch of night;
When the bright moon dispels the gloom,
And various are the stars that bloom,
And brighten as the sun at noon,
Forget me not.

When solemn sighs the hollow wind,
And deepen’d thought enraps the mind;
If e’er thou doest in mournful tone,
E’er sigh because thou feel alone,
Or wrapt in melancholy prone,
Forget me not.

When bird does wait thy absence long,
Nor tend unto its morning song;
While thou art searching stoic page,
Or listening to an ancient sage,
Whose spirit curbs a mournful rage,
Forget me not.

Then when in silence thou doest walk,
Nor being round with whom to talk;
When thou art on the mighty deep,
And do in quiet action sleep;
If we no more on earth do meet,
Forget me not.

When brightness round thee long shall bloom,
And knelt remembering those in gloom;
And when in deep oblivion's shade,
This breathless, mouldering form is laid,
And thy terrestrial body staid,
Forget me not.

“Should sorrow cloud thy coming years,
And bathe thy happiness in tears,
Remember, though we’re doom’d to part,
There lives one fond and faithful heart,
That will forget thee not.”

— Ann Plato