Vale Marie

For those of you who sent such lovely wishes when I posted about the Appeal for Marie Cook I need to let you know with sorrow that Marie died on the 7th of July from complications of her cancer.
This is the poem that has connected me most with my feelings about her death

The Swan

The labouring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.
And dying – to let go, no longer feel
the solid ground we stand on every day
is like his anxious letting himself fall
into the water, which receives him gently
and which, as though with reverence and joy,
draws back past him in streams on either side;
while, infinitely silent and aware,
in his full majesty and ever more
indifferent, he condescends to glide.

By: Rainer Maria Rilke

Farewell Marie