(edited by Thomas Forrest)

To my mother:

Cherry, plum, peach and damson - each person, true to his or her individuality - has much in common with culture; Culture being the flowering of humanity, transcending national boundaries, time periods and other distinctions ... So, I know what I’ll do. I’ll marry culture and the land. I’ll start with an orchard, and then a forest, find out which trees are happiest where and when and then, nurture the land; in hot climates, in flooded gullies, in deserts that man has laid to waste, and each tree, each little sapling will be a healing of the heart.

And when your Heart stops: I will wrap you up and hold you lightly in my own heart as only the living can do. In memory; we’ll find the value and discard the rest; take the poison and turn it to medicine; untangle the grief, and put the anger to good use.

We are like droplets that make up the ocean, all interconnected, surfacing as waves from time to time ... before dissolving back into the ocean’s swell. But underneath this ebb and flow, is what we can’t see, what our mind’s can’t fathom.

I promise you though, that I will keep on looking.