In Loving Memory.
Rita Teresa Flynn (1953-2000).
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Dear Rita, dear sweet Ritchins, how I loved you, and how little did I expect that fate would take you so cruelly from us last August (2000). How I still love you, and how strange and ironic that this cruel twist of fate has now wrought even more monumental changes upon my being, that seems to have resulted in an even closer spiritual bond between us than we had in life. You kept your promise to me Ritchins, and I know you won't mind me telling the world about you and displaying your picture for all to see, for you are in other realms now my sweetheart and no-one can ever hurt you again, and for that I rejoice because I know now that you have found both the freedom and the happiness that you always sought. May the Lord keep you safe until we meet again. Amen.
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How do I begin to tell you about this most beautiful and even magical woman, for that is how she always seemed to me, she had a very deep inner beauty, a beautiful soul in fact, and that is why we had a strong bond, a spiritual connection if you will, because although I was not blind to her outer beauty of course, I saw that light that shined behind her eyes from the moment I first met her.
That was back in 1982, and although it wasn't love at first sight there was definately a chemistry between us from a very early stage.
I've been wondering how to tell you what I feel here, and it seems that one of the things that drew Rita and I together was music. She played a guitar too, and we often played together or just sang to each other when the mood took us. She was an artist, strewth she was so many things come to that, but she was certainly an artist. I am going to chuck a piece of a song by Marc Cohn at you now. Because right now that and "I know You're out There Somewhere" by the Moody Blues are the two songs I am singing most for her at the moment....
The opening lines of "True Companion by Marc Cohn...
" Baby I've been searching, like everybody else, Can't see nothing different about myself... Sometimes I'm an angel, and sometimes I'm cruel, but when it comes to love, I'm just another fool.... Yes I've climbed the mountain, I'm gonna swim the sea, there ain't no act of God girl, could keep you safe from me. My arms are reaching out, Out across this canyon, I'm asking you to be my true companion, True companion, True companion.." ..
There's more, but hey buy the album, it's a great song and I was always a sucker for a good piano too. :-)
It's kind of ironic I suppose, that despite our strong spiritual bond, Rita and I never really ironed out all our problems together, we both had problems of our own of course, and it's oh so easy in retrospect to look back and blame yourself for why something didn't work out the way you wanted it to. The irony is that I feel so close to her now... She once said to me-ooh back around 1983 it must have been-"I look forward to being close to you one day Dave, when I've got all this shit out of my head.. got this worm out of my brain" (She knew about the man the sheep and the worm that lives in a man, even then) and as I said above she has kept that promise to me, I feel her near every day, and rumour has it that we have been together in more than one past life! :-) Anyway, be that as it may, I want to tell you about some of the good times we shared while she was still among us in this life.
I am also planning to get a few more photos of her to put in here. I have some good ones still in my camera from back in 1990 so I only hope they come out alright. That was a good year for us, it was the last year I actually saw her in the flesh, though we communicated after that. Actually that is probably my biggest regret.. that I thought I had plenty of time. I never knew she was going to die of course, (I don't think anybody did except her) and that's just the point, it can in fact happen to any one of us at any time, so live each day like it was your only day, your last day, because one day it will be. :-)
Anyway as I said that was a good year for us, almost magical even.. that was the year we shared a house tucked away in the trees on the drive of Champions! :-) Yes it was a good year, O Lord, what fools we are to think we have all the time. What a fool I was, to think we had forever for our art, and still be able to grow old together. Hmm... I won't get bogged down in the regrets though, they are there to learn from and move on, as I know Rita has now. She really was a "True Companion"... she was a very honest person, sometimes brutally so, yet she was no more so with anyone than she was with herself.
Once she said to me, "you scare me a bit sometimes Dave".... Hmm, I thought heck that's nothing to what you do to me woman, you see right through me, and read my soul like a book! You terrify me! :-) Like the artist she was she had this deep perception of the underlying value of things, and due to her unusually intense self-honesty, she had bullshit detectors that would pick you out and cut you down at a hundred paces!
" She's got everything she needs, she's an artist she don't look back, she wears an Egyptian ring, sparkles before she speaks, bow down to her on Sunday, and for Christmas give her a drum " ... (Bob Dylan "She Belongs To Me" with apologies for jumbling it up a bit :).
31st Jan 2001.
Yes she was something else alright. She drew, and she painted. She played a guitar and the flute, and as I say she had the true perception of an artist. This was something we saw in each other from the beginning... We had so much in common, it still hardly seems possible she is gone, yet I am over the shock of it now, and rejoicing for Rita's sake, as I know she wants us all to end the grieving now. The first two or three months were terrible, I hardly stopped crying during my waking hours, but gradually the tears became less bitter, and began to sweeten, as I remembered all the good things we had shared, and I hear her voice in my heart now sharing those memorys with me. She was such a wonderful and kind, and caring sort of a person, though as I say she could be brutally honest, and if she thought you needed to be told something, she was no shrinking violet... As I myself could attest. And I thank God for it, because I am a much better man these past 18 yrs for having known Rita, than I ever would have been otherwise.
She challenged me, in so many ways, (and how! :-) which is one of the reasons I suppose that I kept coming back for more, even when it hurt like hell. As I say my biggest regret is these last ten years, I let slide.. thought we had decades to go.. Rita was always so healthy.. thought we'd get back together again in due course. I knew she was into her own personal development bigtime, and she had shown me years before where my own priorities ought to lie, so I had thought Ok, I'll make damn sure I get my act together before I see her again, so there's no chance of either of our egos getting in the way this time... I had succeeded in killing mine too. The summer before I had had the awakening experience, I worked years for, then gave up on, then finally had it fall on me like a ton of bricks without any consent or volition of mine!! Anyway, truth is, I had been thinking of seeing Rita again for several weeks before she died. I had no idea she was going to die. As I say it is a dramatic irony really, on the one hand I felt this sense of urgency.. like: "you'd better catch up with her soon morgan, or she may go away and end up forgetting you! " ... Rita would have said that's just your insecurities talking Dave. On the other hand I wondered if she might not have met another man already... and although this was definately still my insecurities talking at this stage, this nonetheless was always my worst fear! "When you're in love with a beautiful woman, you go it alone" Every man would take your place in her heart!!
Anyway, as I said it constitutes my biggest regret and self recrimination that I didn't know, and didn't see her in so long. You wonder if you might have been able to do something, if things might have turned out differently, if she mightn't in fact still be here. But recrimination and regret will only get you so far. In the end you have to move on and learn the lessons involved.
As I've told you folks.. treat each day like it was your only day, your last day... whilst this will undoubtedly be true one day, you can treat all the others as bonus days, each with lessons of it's own to provide. At this stage I can only say that it is true that " It is better to have loved and to have lost than never to have loved at all " I thank God for every moment He gave me with Rita. Bon Voyage my Princess.
1st Feb 2001.
Now would seem like a good time to drop in one of my favourite black and white photos of Rita. Here she is with me and her cat during happy times in 1983.
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Sunday 4th Feb 2001.
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Today I am going to give you a whole song in it's entirety from the Moody Blues, it's a very special song from a very special band, and one that I was singing heartily for Rita before she died. Yet now that she has died, the song has somehow taken on an even more apt and pithy meaning for my present enduring state. It says so many things so I'll let it speak for itself....
"I Know You're Out There Somewhere" (The Moody Blues)
I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere somewhere,
I know I'll find you somehow, and somehow I'll return again to you.....
The mist is lifting slowly, I can see the way ahead,
And I've left behind the empty streets that once inspired my life,
And the strength of the emotion is like thunder in the air,
Coz the promise that we made each other haunts me to the end...
I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere somewhere,
I know you're out there somewhere,
Somewhere you can hear my voice,
I know I'll find you somehow, somehow somehow,
I know I'll find you somehow, and somehow I'll return again to you....
The secret of your beauty, and the mystery of your soul,
I've been searching for in every one I meet,
And the times I've been mistaken it's impossible to say,
And the grass is growing underneath our feet...
I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere somewhere,
I know you're out there somewhere,
Somewhere you can hear my voice,
I know I'll find you somehow, somehow somehow,
I know I'll find you somehow, and somehow I'll return again to you....
You see I know you're out there somewhere.....
O Yes I know you're out there somewhere.....
You see I know I'll find you somehow.....
O Yes I know I'll find you somehow...
The words that I remember, from my childhood still are true,
That there's none so blind as those who will not see,
And to those who lack the courage, and say it's dangerous to try,
Well they just don't know that Love Eternal, will not be denied...
I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere somewhere,
I know you're out there somewhere,
Somewhere you can hear my voice,
I know I'll find you somehow, somehow somehow,
I know I'll find you somehow, and somehow I'll return again to you....
Yes I know it's gonna happen, (know it's gonna happen) I can feel you getting near, (feel you getting near) We seem to be returning to the "Fountain of Our Youth" ..
And if you wake up wondering, (wondering) in the darkness I'll be there, (you know I'll be there) my arms will close around you and protect you with the truth...
I know you're out there somewhere, somewhere somewhere,
I know you're out there somewhere,
Somewhere you can hear my voice,
I know I'll find you somehow, somehow somehow,
I know I'll find you somehow, and somehow I'll return again to you....
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I hope you liked that one... I shall not often give you an entire song lyric, but this page is for Rita.... and this is the song I most want to sing for her at the moment.. and yes I do feel her getting near, very much so, you see I knew her soul while it was yet within her body and I do know she's out there somewhere, running free and happy like the wind.... So say a prayer for her and then rejoice my friends, for she has earned her passage home.
To be continued....
Now continuing.... (26th January 2004)
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