I carry you in my heart

Thank you for all the loveliness shown to yesterday's blip - I suspect much of the appreciation was for a funny flying dog, so here she is again. If the angle looks odd it's because she climbed atop the shelter on a brassically cold Ingleborough to stare into the icy wind moodily.

I'd wanted a short sharp blast, hoping a friend who's been unwell would be up to a wander, not to be this time, I'll keep trying. 

Still good to be out, I'd things I wanted to find an order for, words I need to write. I've been asked to speak at a conference about mental wellbeing and adventure, to talk about recovery and resilience. I know there's much I want to say, as ever I need to coax the words into a form I can mould, a long lonely walk with my ghosts is often the best muse I can muster. 

I'd not been this way for a decade, its a nice enough straight up and down. Around Crina Bottom I passed through a gate onto the open fell and paused at two memorial benches. The first a lovely reuniting of an old couple, one plaque then a fews yrs later another. Together at last forever. 
The t'other made me ponder, a young mum gone too soon, a resonance felt keenly, a date too close for comfort. Little did I know. 

Wistful I wandered on, a pouncing puppy bringing forth joy as only she can. As I'm often want to do I chatted along to Missy, myself and Mum, forming words, raising ghosts, smiling more than frowning, what I want to say slowly taking shape. 
Just before the aptly named Black Shiver I stopped to check on a lady sat on a rock, "not far now" I said with encouragement "far enough" she replied with a smile. 
She told me she was nursing a knee, I knew I felt her physical pain. Then she told me how she'd intended but to walk as far as her friend's bench, everything more à bonus. 
"Was your friend the young Mum?" I asked, knowing it more than likely must be " I lost my Mum just a few days before, also far too young" 
We sat a while while a puppy played. 
And slowly we both let go. 
Her dearest friend, my mother dear, both stabbed to death by a rageful husband, both gone too soon, both missed forever. 
Two beautiful women killed 56 days and 35 miles apart, so many lives irrevocablely changed. 

There aren't many days I share a hug with a stranger, and fewer still when tears still sting my eyes, and seldom any where that's a good thing. But today somehow it was. Now I know what I want to speak about and who I'm going to say it for. 
I remembered my  Mum with a smile and thought of Tracy and her life of Adventure.