LORNA

In memory of truly the most remarkable and unforgettable lady in my life.

By Stanley Collymore

 

Logically, would you please explain to me God why

she had to die, and at such a tender age too? Just

turned 23 years old when you, the Master of

the Universe, quite inexplicably, it seems

to me, saw fit to make that dreadful

decision that so devastatingly

ended in her summarily

being taken from

us for good?

 

An act of yours that permanently negated in

the process, as I’m sure you knew then when

you heartlessly slammed shut that once open

door on her, the very promising future that she

had ahead of her; all those amazing and positive

things she often and animatedly spoke about

and planned on doing and, together with

everything else that she had in mind,

were ample and logical reasons

to have her carry on living!

 

Principally among them, and meticulously

in the making, a brand new and exciting

career as a teacher; something that

she’d always set her heart on

doing and now as an Honours

Graduate, and unsurprisingly so with

excellent references to her name too, had

this great privilege afforded her and the

genuinely challenging opportunity

which it provided her to pursue.

 

Then there was the enduring love of her young

life: the man who she’d completely entrusted

herself to emotionally and romantically,

and who himself reciprocating the

unconditional and sincere trust which

she’d devotedly placed in him did precisely

for her what she’d so magnanimously

and most lovingly done for him.

 

Furthermore, immutably and immensely

proud of her as any sentient suitor in

similar circumstances undoubtedly

would be of such a noticeably

outstanding and highly

desirable woman; and additionally with his

head proudly held high and him standing

tall, the courtesy and honour of being

that favoured man: a distinctly

discriminating decision on her part that

most welcomingly he recalled found

instant approval in his heart, I was

fantastically grateful that that

fortunate man was me!

 

The launch of a mutual and most favourable

romance whose origins auspiciously began when,

much later and quite amusingly she did admit

what already to both of us and our closest

friends at UNI had long been an open

secret, that in the lecture hall during the

very first seminar of our English Language

degree she’d purposely chosen and what’s

more had also bravely followed this up

by intentionally occupying, as if

by chance, the vacant seat

that was next to me.

 

Love at first sight on both our part we

jointly agreed that promptly, inspiringly,

quite sensibly and most satisfyingly,

to our mutual delight romantically,

unwaveringly became a truly

committed affair of the heart which we both

welcomed fulsomely, very much appreciated, and

wholeheartedly vowed would be one of the principally

sustaining ingredients in our ongoing and resolutely

lasting relationship that we instinctively knew

and welcomingly accepted would for us

inevitably culminate in matrimony.

 

Then most cruelly and just nine months after our

joyous graduation with outstanding postgraduate degrees

and both of us in our first year of secondary teaching

respectively, you had her most unexpectedly and

tragically die. But why? As at the time and in

the years since then I’ve never been able to

comprehend much less come to terms with how an

incredibly beautiful, vigorously full of life and diligently

fit young lady could so ironically and senselessly die;

and to do so in the most bizarre of tragedies.

 

And would you credit it? Dying, most incredibly, of

an epileptic fit spontaneously triggered it would

seem, and this is the bit that makes no sense

at all to me considering the picture of health she was

constantly in, by a rapid and lethal attack of epilepsy: the

unlikeliest of illnesses imaginable in her case to bring

about such a fatality; and that neither she nor anyone close

to her, and that included me, ever knew she was suffering

from, and as we would also later discover even her

medical records had failed to pick up on. A situation

all the more disconcerting to her family and

many friends on learning that she’d died

while conducting a PE class, of all

things, in her school gym.

 

We didn’t teach at the same school and for that reason

I wasn’t physically there when this personal catastrophe

so brutally unfolded, and when told the appalling news

by her mum of what had happened: that my fiancée

was no longer with us but was in fact now dead,

at first simply refused to trust my own ears

or believe a word of what she said.

 

Then as reality forcefully sank in and I struggled

desperately to stay calm within and tranquilly

deal with the matter in hand; I must confess

that I failed miserably in this seemingly

impossible undertaking and with

inconsolable grief unashamedly succumbed to

a massive flood of tears. And additionally with

a tornado of raw and deep emotional anguish

now swirling irrepressibly throughout my

head, earnestly wished with my entire

heart that like her, I too was dead.

 

The years of course have gradually

eased the pain and through them all my

intended mother-in-law: a most extraordinary

woman in every regard, has in the course of our joint

ordeal been a source of enduring solace, undeviating

encouragement and a solid rock of emotional support for

me. All the same, the horrendous loss of her most precious,

wonderful, incredibly beautiful, exceptionally talented

and irreplaceable daughter, Lorna lives on eternally

in my heart; as will the uncorrupted love we that

unwaveringly and reciprocally both shared

with each other right from the start!

 

© Stanley V. Collymore

4 March 2013.