LORNA
By Stanley Collymore
Logically, would you please explain to me God why
she had to die, and at such a tender age too? Just
turned 23 years old when you, the Master of
the Universe, quite inexplicably, it seems
to me, saw fit to make that dreadful
decision that so devastatingly
ended in her summarily
being taken from
us for good?
An act of yours that permanently negated in
the process, as I’m sure you knew then when
you heartlessly slammed shut that once open
door on her, the very promising future that she
had ahead of her; all those amazing and positive
things she often and animatedly spoke about
and planned on doing and, together with
everything else that she had in mind,
were ample and logical reasons
to have her carry on living!
Principally among them, and meticulously
in the making, a brand new and exciting
career as a teacher; something that
she’d always set her heart on
doing and now as an Honours
Graduate, and unsurprisingly so with
excellent references to her name too, had
this great privilege afforded her and the
genuinely challenging opportunity
which it provided her to pursue.
Then there was the enduring love of her young
life: the man who she’d completely entrusted
herself to emotionally and romantically,
and who himself reciprocating the
unconditional and sincere trust which
she’d devotedly placed in him did precisely
for her what she’d so magnanimously
and most lovingly done for him.
Furthermore, immutably and immensely
proud of her as any sentient suitor in
similar circumstances undoubtedly
would be of such a noticeably
outstanding and highly
desirable woman; and additionally with his
head proudly held high and him standing
tall, the courtesy and honour of being
that favoured man: a distinctly
discriminating decision on her part that
most welcomingly he recalled found
instant approval in his heart, I was
fantastically grateful that that
fortunate man was me!
The launch of a mutual and most favourable
romance whose origins auspiciously began when,
much later and quite amusingly she did admit
what already to both of us and our closest
friends at UNI had long been an open
secret, that in the lecture hall during the
very first seminar of our English Language
degree she’d purposely chosen and what’s
more had also bravely followed this up
by intentionally occupying, as if
by chance, the vacant seat
that was next to me.
Love at first sight on both our part we
jointly agreed that promptly, inspiringly,
quite sensibly and most satisfyingly,
to our mutual delight romantically,
unwaveringly became a truly
committed affair of the heart which we both
welcomed fulsomely, very much appreciated, and
wholeheartedly vowed would be one of the principally
sustaining ingredients in our ongoing and resolutely
lasting relationship that we instinctively knew
and welcomingly accepted would for us
inevitably culminate in matrimony.
Then most cruelly and just nine months after our
joyous graduation with outstanding postgraduate degrees
and both of us in our first year of secondary teaching
respectively, you had her most unexpectedly and
tragically die. But why? As at the time and in
the years since then I’ve never been able to
comprehend much less come to terms with how an
incredibly beautiful, vigorously full of life and diligently
fit young lady could so ironically and senselessly die;
and to do so in the most bizarre of tragedies.
And would you credit it? Dying, most incredibly, of
an epileptic fit spontaneously triggered it would
seem, and this is the bit that makes no sense
at all to me considering the picture of health she was
constantly in, by a rapid and lethal attack of epilepsy: the
unlikeliest of illnesses imaginable in her case to bring
about such a fatality; and that neither she nor anyone close
to her, and that included me, ever knew she was suffering
from, and as we would also later discover even her
medical records had failed to pick up on. A situation
all the more disconcerting to her family and
many friends on learning that she’d died
while conducting a PE class, of all
things, in her school gym.
We didn’t teach at the same school and for that reason
I wasn’t physically there when this personal catastrophe
so brutally unfolded, and when told the appalling news
by her mum of what had happened: that my fiancée
was no longer with us but was in fact now dead,
at first simply refused to trust my own ears
or believe a word of what she said.
Then as reality forcefully sank in and I struggled
desperately to stay calm within and tranquilly
deal with the matter in hand; I must confess
that I failed miserably in this seemingly
impossible undertaking and with
inconsolable grief unashamedly succumbed to
a massive flood of tears. And additionally with
a tornado of raw and deep emotional anguish
now swirling irrepressibly throughout my
head, earnestly wished with my entire
heart that like her, I too was dead.
The years of course have gradually
eased the pain and through them all my
intended mother-in-law: a most extraordinary
woman in every regard, has in the course of our joint
ordeal been a source of enduring solace, undeviating
encouragement and a solid rock of emotional support for
me. All the same, the horrendous loss of her most precious,
wonderful, incredibly beautiful, exceptionally talented
and irreplaceable daughter, Lorna lives on eternally
in my heart; as will the uncorrupted love we that
unwaveringly and reciprocally both shared
with each other right from the start!
© Stanley V. Collymore
4 March 2013.
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