Henry's Songbook

Good-bye love, there's no one leaving
Good-bye love, there's no one leaving

Now is the moment of parting, I can feel all the fear in your hand
Leaving a home full of memories, on the verge of a strange new land
It doesn't seem so long since the last time, the first day you took me to school
Searching for words that are gentle, being brave so the tears don't come through

How swiftly the years seemed to follow, but I never could see you grow old
We both turned the hay in the summer and we sang when the winter was cold
And the stories I tell to my children are the ones that you told me before
But the story now slowly unfolding is the saddest story of all

I don't know how much you can hear me, but you seem quite content on your own
Are you drifting away to the summer of the days of your childhood at home
And just when I feel I've betrayed you, I am lost and I don't know what to do
You smile and you whisper, My darling, you must go and take your wee ones to school

[1995:] I couldn't help but feel a sense of betrayal as I led my mother out through the door of the family home for the last time. She had Alzheimer's disease and we weren't able to look after her anymore. I could feel the fear in her hand, just as she must have felt the fear of uncertainty in mine the first day she led me out to school. Early the next morning in the unfamiliar surroundings of the residential home I sat with her, not wanting to, or knowing how to, leave. She was the one who came to the rescue as usual. "You must go and take your wee ones to school," she whispered suddenly. She had done her duty, now I must do mine. We still wave good-bye nearly every day as she drifts with dignity further and further away from the pains of the earth towards the perfection of the heavens. My thanks to the great people in Kennedy's Home, Rostrevor, for being so good to her. (Notes Tommy Sands, 'The Heart's A Wonder')