MARTIN FLANAGAN: A working class gentleman

Martin Flanagan’s parents-in-law, George and Meg East, in the Launceston Gorge on their honeymoon in 1952.

Over the years, I’d heard stories of Poppa visiting hospitals,
Touring the ward, talking to each patient in turn.
How he stood and listened as a senile old woman
sang “Two Little Girls in Blue” to him each night,
Thanking her when the last wavering note had sounded.
A working class gentleman, I call him.

The night his wife died, he sat by her bed.
She fought death furiously,
demanding he take her home.
Eyes red-rimmed, he held her hand, unspeaking.
In the end, one daughter said,
“We’re taking you home, Mum”,
And, with that, she was gone.
Twenty minutes passed as one long pause,
then he rose and put his face beside hers:
“I want to thank you for 68 lovely years
And two beautiful daughters”.
Each word like a chunk cut from a tree.

In the corridor, he told me,
“She’s the greatest person I ever met”.
I had lived on the outside of their marriage for 40 years,
Barely noting their affection.
Now I saw a love as deep as a canyon
Carved by the river of her.

Leaving the hospital, he glanced in the ward she’d first been in.
An old woman’s face lifted from the pillow in joyful recognition.
Stepping inside, removing his hat, he asked how she was.
When she had told him, he said, “My wife just died”.
Another woman in the ward cried: “That’s so sad!”.
Turning, he nodded and said, “Thank you”.
Replacing his cap, he left the ward and walked on.

His grief is factual: “Half of me is gone”.
But, if asked, he says he’s happy.
He means as happy as he can be.
I see a 90-year-old as frank as weathered stone.
Performing his daily chores, he retraces her outline,
Cleaning the carpets as she did,
Putting fresh flowers around the house as was her habit.
They had agreed, whoever went first,
the other “would just get on with it”.
Keep going, old man.
Show us how it’s done.

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