Banke, memories hurt. My love, the day is here when all I have of you are memories. Memories are sweet but memories also speak to what could be. Memories are dumb, they do not speak when you speak to them. They punctuate your dreams, and cause you to laugh out loud making a fool of you (I don’t know how many times the girls have asked me why I was smiling). Memories and ironies: There is irony in every path once jointly walked, and in seasons once happy, now a reminder of a cross and a cloud. I spent Thanksgiving and the first week of December chasing memories, Tiny, and finding mostly ironies. The memories of Christmas of 2011 throw long shadows on the Christmas of 2013. The Ivy may be "full grown" but it is also slightly poisoned. I see swabs and syringes in every gift wrap. The twelve days of Christmas now seem more like the Nights of the Long knives since you left. In a few days, that thing will rustle again, and then flip - the calendar i.e. That relentless busybody marking down the seasons of our pain. I visited the Emirs’ land. I gazed at your lodestar and retraced the memory paths, dust and all. I visited “Zion” and saw your "footsteps" on the “Amphi” where you once made music, and the bench where you once made poetry. I saw you "walk" from the yonder block one more time. I had no courage to visit Adisa Bashua; I could not visit the "shrine" Tiny. The healing power of time is exaggerated. Time is more palliative than therapeutic. What a season! What a miserable season Christmas has proven to be in your absence! May the Lord help us all.