Grief, Loss and Hope | Tribute | Christmas
The Dragonfly
A huitain poem and a fable retold
I saw a dragonfly today It whizzed by my kitchen window, reminding me of our sorrow I watched it zig-zag on its way It gave me cause to stop and pray for those who have been left behind from cancer death or suicide I pray, Be blessed this Christmas Day.
Dedicated to the family and friends of Christine who passed away last week from breast cancer; Ian who has terminal prostate cancer and is not expected to make it to Christmas; Helen who died from melanoma one week before Christmas 2020; and Jason who ended his own life the same week.
I don’t mean to be morbid and I don’t want to spoil the joy that comes with Christmas but I’d be deceiving myself if I didn’t admit to feeling melancholy.
I promised myself this Christmas would be different to the past how ever many Christmases. Different in that I’d actually enjoy it. Not just the day itself but the build up to it with the preparations, decorations, salutations and family traditions.
I hadn’t factored in the memories. Or bumping into Jason’s mother at the local shopping centre yesterday. Or the recent news of Christine’s death. Or the phone call two days ago informing us of Ian’s sudden decline and imminent demise.
And then the dragonfly appeared.
We rarely see dragonflies in our garden. That’s because the nearest body of water - other than backyard swimming pools - is nearly two kilometres away.
I took the dragonfly’s surprising and unexpected visit to be a sign.
A sign of hope.
A sign to remember the dragonfly story — a story that I associate with my BFF, Lynda, who passed away from bowel cancer a month after Christmas 2018.
Lynda is my heavenly muse. It’s Lynda who told me to forget about the vacuum cleaning and go and write a poem. She gave me the first line, I saw a dragonfly today. She told me to turn it into something special. Something we hadn’t done before.
We turned it into a huitain – a French poetic form that was popular in the 16th century and most likely originated in Spain. A huitain is a single octave (eight-line stanza) with eight syllables per line and a choice of rhyme schemes. I’ve opted for a Spanish rhyme scheme — abbaacca — along with iambic tetrameter (four sets of da-DUMs per line) because Lynda likes rhythm. 💞
The Dragonfly Story
The nymph was busy chasing his cousins in and out of the water weeds when he felt an indescribable urge to climb the stem of a water lily.
The other nymphs called out to him, “Hey, what are you doing? Remember what happened to the others when they climbed to the top?”
The nymph looked down at their anxious faces and smiled. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I promise to come back and tell you what’s at the top.”
They tried again to persuade the intrepid water bug to change his mind but nothing they said stopped him from climbing further and further up the stalk. All they could do was watch until he blended into the hazy, far reaches of the water above them.
The nymph hauled himself onto the upper surface of the lily pad and rested a while.
Actually, it was longer than he thought.
When he awoke, he was amazed to discover he was no longer a non-descript water bug. His body had stretched to an enormous length and his eyes had expanded into huge multi-faceted lenses that allowed him to see everything around him all at once. The colours he saw took his breath away. Wherever he was, it was beautiful. And nothing like he’d ever seen before.
A quiver of excitement ran through his body.
It was then that the most wondrous thing of all happened.
Two sets of brilliantly coloured wings spread out from his back and started vibrating at a terrific rate. Before he knew it, he had lifted off the lily pad and was darting this way and that across the surface of the water.
“Oh my, oh my!” he cried. “What am I doing? How has this happened to me?”
He continued to zip around the lake at a tremendous speed. His wings allowed him to do extraordinary tricks.
“Wow-wee! Look at me!” he squealed, wondering if anyone could hear him.
It was then that he looked down through the water and saw his cousins far below.
“Hey guys, I’m up here!” he yelled.
He hovered over the water, beating his wings furiously but to no avail.
“They can’t see me,” he moaned.
Then he remembered his promise.
“If they can’t see me up here, I will have to go down to them.”
He dived headfirst at the water.
And bounced off the surface.
He tried again and again.
No matter what he did, he could not go more than a few millimetres into the water. His wings got in the way every time.
He rested on a lily pad for a while and thought about how he could get back to his cousins, the water bugs. Their warning, ‘Remember what happened to the others when they climbed to the top?’ played on his mind.
He noticed his reflection in the water.
“Of course! Now I understand!” he exclaimed. “If they were like me, they couldn’t return because they couldn’t dive into the water and swim down to the bottom.”
He thought about it some more.
“And even if they had made it to the bottom, our cousins wouldn’t have recognised them because they looked so different.”
He peered again at his reflection. There was not one thing about him now that looked like a water bug. He’d totally transformed from a nothing-special-about-me nymph to an exquisite dragonfly.
A wave of sadness washed over him when he realised he would never see his cousins again.
‘But wait!” he cried. “That’s not true!”
His wings started to vibrate and he felt himself lifting off the lily pad.
“When my cousins get the urge like I did, they’ll climb to the top and the same thing will happen to them!”
He darted from one waterlily to another almost overcome in his excitement.
“We’ll be together forever in paradise.” 🙏 👼
Sharing the Caring
Just as the dragonfly caught my attention today, so did Sheila McCall. She flew into view via a ‘followed you’ notification I found after I’d uploaded my dragonfly story to the Medium editor.
Clicking through to Sheila’s profile I discovered she is a relatively new writer on Medium. One of her stories, Memories Never Die, piqued my interest. I was on my iPad at the time so I only had the title and some basic metrics to go by — no subtitle or preview text to give me more context to her story.
I don’t want to spoil it for you, but when you read Sheila’s story, I think you will understand why I believe the timing of our connection and the stories we’re both sharing with you were meant to be -
Needless to say, I followed Sheila back. 😊 💙
Thank you to Liberty Forrest, Author at Hope * Healing * Humour for giving this piece a home in her publication. 🙏 💕
Thank you all for reading. I hope and pray that no matter what your circumstance, Christmas gives you time to pause, reflect and give thanks for the people who mean the most to you. 🙏 💛 🎄
Be blessed this Christmas Day
© Carolyn Hastings 2022
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