You must live to an old age!

Remember Chrysanthemum? I was a very exciteable English lecturer, always pushing myself beyond the call of duty. And you were there to smile that small smile of yours and shake your head. I used to tell you jokes just to make you smile. I could not make you laugh because you were so serious.

And the Head of Department, Miss C, would shake her head and think of me as irrelevant and irreverent!!

I knew it was hard for you to smile because you had so much pain in your life. You had your tragedies, you had your heart aches. While I? I was one who had very short memories for pains. I was just that happy go lucky woman who would say "booo" to an old man and hide behind a bush....and laugh...

So one day as I was preparing my lesson, I read this poem to you...that was years ago..and now I am that old lady...yes..I am going to wear purple..Do you remember I never wore purple?

Warning


When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

Jenny Joseph.

Dear dear Chrysanthemum I want you to live to that old age and we can do all those crazy things together.

You have not lived your life! You have not relaxed. You have not had a moment of breathing space - having to care for Audrey who in the last seven years have added more than twenty years of age to your life.