Mother Virago, 1930-2006

Thank you all for your kind offers and thoughts in my last post.

My mother passed away at the hospital just before midnight on Tuesday night. I regret that we were not able to get her home and into hospice care before the end, but I'm glad that I was home during her last days and was able to spend a number of hours with her every day, in what was really just a coincidental aligning of circumstances.

Virgo Sis arrived today and we made the funeral and cremation arrangements. Part of Mom's ashes will be placed in a niche next to her daughter, Ms. V. We are planning to scatter the rest some place Mom loved -- if not Paris, then perhaps some pretty domestic coastal region. I found the following poem marked by an asterisk in Mom's collection of Victorian poetry and so I'm reading it at her memorial on Saturday. I offer the poem to you all as an early edition of Friday Poetry Blogging.

"Remember"
Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

And, as an early edition of Friday Random 10 (well, not quite 10 and definitely not random), here are some of the songs I'm going to put on a CD and play. When you get the the Guns 'n' Roses, you'll think I'm joking, but I'm not. My Mom loved GNR. Seriously. I think she wanted to adopt Axl Rose. Anyway, here's the list of possibilities, some obvious, but they're bands and songs Mom liked and they're appropriate:

1. The Beatles, "In My Life"
2. The Flaming Lips, "Do You Realize??"
3. R. E. M.'s cover of "Pale Blue Eyes"
4. Guns 'n' Roses, "Paradise City"
5. The Rolling Stones, "Ruby Tuesday"

Does anyone have any suggestions along similar lines -- especially pretty, hook-laden rock? I have a little time to get the CD to the funeral director. Seriously, suggestions (especially if you know it's available on iTunes or elsewhere) would be much appreciated because I'm drawing a blank.