Better To Remember And Be Sad

Christina Rossetti wrote a poem which finishes with the lines:

'Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.'

In recent years I have lost a number of people who were very special to me, both friends and family members. There have been times when I have thought my heart was completely broken and it could never be mended. At the moment I have the heaviest heart because I have lost the best friend I ever had and the only person who has ever really understood me. I have wept and I have been angry with the world for taking her from me.

Yesterday a friend gave me a card which said 'I know I can't take away your pain and sorrow but I wish more than anything I could'

At first I thought 'Yes, so do I' but then I began to really think. This much pain can only be felt because there has been a tremendous amount of love first. To lose the pain would mean to forget that. I don't want to forget. I want to remember all the things we shared, happy or sad, the times we have laughed together and done really stupid things or even the times we have cried together because things were bad. I wouldn't even swap the rare arguments we had. The disagreements were a sign we cared enough about each other to say when something wasn't right, and deep down we always knew that.

I began to think of all the friends I have lost and then started to focus on how they all enriched my life and helped to make me who I am today. If I was introduced to someone tomorrow and told that they would be a wonderful friend but I would lose them in a year and my heart would break, I would still choose to have that year with them because I truly believe that the joy and love gained from real friendship is worth every bit of pain that may follow.

So, I have to disagree with Ms Rossetti and I say:

'Better by far that you should remember and be sad' because it means that you have been lucky enough to have had something truly special in your life.