Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I wrote this poem in honour of Rosie, who took her own life at the age of sixteen.
Movie song
Rosie once played –
alone in her room
she used to play her guitar very softly,
the sound would come to me
where I lay.
Her china beads are in my room,
green and shiny, strung on wires.
I remember she had made a cat out of clay,
she laughed, she said she kept it with her always,
though it was heavy.
Mother Theresa has now been declared a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. When I think of this woman there is one thing that stands out in my mind: during an interview she admitted that she was often tortured by “dark nights of the soul”, times of extreme doubt and despair. In other words, in this way she was just like us – we all have our dark nights of the soul, our times when nothing makes sense to us and we find it difficult to believe in anything at all.
In spite of this Mother Theresa managed to continue her work. She is recognized for her care for others and for her non-attachment to material goods. And most of the time we too manage to proceed with our lives, just doing the best that we can with what we have. We all have inside us some kind of courage that keeps us going – a little bit of sainthood.
Breakingthroughthepaperhoop 