Dearly Departed   So much of it, my childhood, departed this world with you.   Though I lived it, I can bring back only brief moments of it:   candle-smoke and a blue trike, a Band-Aid on a skinned knee,   your bosomy hugs during nights of dread dreams about … what?   Mother, I meant to ask you so many things about me,   so many whens, hows and whys that can never now be known.   The loss of both your presence and my history presses on me   as an ever-present absence. Andrew Lansdown      …