IN CARING AND LOVING MEMORY OF MY WIFE
VIOLET ELIZABETH AMY (GEMMELL) WOODMAN
B: August 25, 1932, D: Father’s Day June 19, 2011

By Byron H. Woodman

From love-at-first-sight as high school sweethearts, marriage and family
through sixty-one years we cared deeply about each other’s happiness
and were able to create an atmosphere in which our togetherness forever
grew. It continues to grow on this fifth anniversary of her death, during
which I was holding her hand in mine with memories of our life together
flooding through my thoughts.

As we came to the full realization that her journey through this life was
reaching an end, with her still beautiful smile she courageously reminded
me of the fact that this was the “in sickness and in health” part of our
marriage vows and that she would be beginning a new journey until we
were together again, which prompted me to write the following poem:

Alone
I wandered
and found
a flower.

We shared
life and living
ongoing and loving
death and dying.

Alone
I ponder
the beauty of
my beloved Violet.

Adapted and published in the May-June 2016 issue of Muskoka Seniors Magazine, and available within and areas surrounding the Muskoka District of Ontario, Canada.