Elegy for Anne
Dignity in the Smallest Items and Rituals
She wears a silver pin each morning,
a glint of memory pressed against her collar,
where hands tremble but do not falter.
Glioblastoma gnaws at her edges:
balance lost, hours drifting like loose threads,
the map of home blurred in winter fog.
Still, Anne combs her bristly new hair,
each stroke a reclamation,
carries her treasured purse – a talisman –
and applies lipstick with slow, deliberate grace,
ruby red against the hush of fading words.
She folds towels with the precision of ceremony,
and straightens her vases and teapots,
tasks once ordinary, now a testament.
Her dignity, stitched in small rituals,
shines through the winter gloom,
a quiet defiance against forgetting.
Anne’s beauty lingers in these details:
a pin, a purse, the curve of red on her lips,
the courage to greet each day, unbalanced and unbowed.
If you feel like keeping track of Anne’s journey, I’m chronicling it here:
https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/news/