105. Mementos of a Lost Love: The Archaeology of a Box (13)

Mary Elizabeth Deeks (nee Pohlen), 20th May 1939 - 19th February 1982

Next strata in the archaeology of my box is the Mary strata. This inevitably brings powerful memories into play but I don't intend to write more on the subject of my life with Mary. After her death in 1982, I wrote nothing substantial about her for over twenty years until the two years after I retired in 2002. After that virtually nothing further. Some of the material from my 2002-2004 writing has been included elsewhere in my blogs. In this blog I present, with a minimum of comment, the boxed mementos I have kept from our time together.

Items
1.  Two tarnished goblets:

2.  A jewelry bag containing a jewel box, a whistle, my graduation napkin ring, a lovers' knot ring, four other rings, a silver bangle, a tie pin in the shape of a cricket bat plus miscellaneous cuff-links, a chain with a gold pendant, a pendant with a revolving disc, a silver kiwi for a charm bracelet, a silver shell on a pendant, two frog rings, a card and sunshine pendant, and a coin.

The lovers' knot and the two of cups feature in the poem 'When the Shadow Calls' ;

                  Remember a tender rib-eye fillet 

                  Bathed in candlelight
                  And Chateauneuf-du-Pape
                  With the lovers' knot

                  In the two of cups. 

3.  A souvenir of the Moulin Rouge plus audio tapes from our 1981-82 trip to the USA and Europe.

Extracts from these tapes figure prominently in three blogs: 19, In London, in Love, 27 December 2011; 38, "Here comes the Can-Can - Oh, shit the tape's running out", 7 March 2012; and 33, A Wedding in Luxembourg", 19 February 2014.

4.  My picture cut from a souvenir tea towel purchased in Hollywood. It had both Mary and my portrait on it plus a calendar for 1982. I don't know why I discarded (or lost) the Mary picture that was next to mine.

5.  Two goblets in a box from our wedding in 1982.

[For more on Mary, see blogs 31, Trips to National Women's Hospital, Piha and Auckland's West Coast, 6 February 2012; and 37, One Wedding, Two Funerals, Three Letters, 2 March 2012.]