I may have not quite remembered Christina Gabrielle Rossetti’s wonderful poem correctly but it conjures up a lot of how I feel about children dying before parents. About it not being the natural order of things and about how war does not decide who wins – just who’s left! I have written Christina’s hauntingly beautiful poem below as best I can recall and then added my tribute to our fallen by changing the final two lines just for today…

Remember me when I am gone away
Gone far away to the silent land
Where you can no more hold me by the hand
Nor I half turn to go, yet, turning stay
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned
Remember me. You understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray
But if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

Christina Gabrielle Rossetti

Apologies to one of the world’s greatest poets but just for today I would rewrite the last lines…

Better by far you should remember them and smile
Than that you should forget them and be sad…

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