Mona George-Dill died on 29th October 2016
Mona and I met at a time when people with minds like ours needed to meet each other, because the time was right for us to share what we needed to share.
Many call the attraction between man and woman ‘love’ for me the term love is often a feeble attempt to encapsulate the quintessence of what one person feels for another person into one word, but that one word can never truly encompass the vastness and complexity of what the mind truly feels.
I prefer to call what Mona and I shared an affinity between two minds trapped within the forces of a common understanding we shared of the evolving journey of humanity.
In many ways we were very different but our differences were what made us so special to each other.
Our relationship transcended the boundaries of man and woman to explore the spiritual realms of religion, metaphysics, cosmology and epistemology.
I had never before met anyone who with such fervency challenged my intellectual scope and integrity.
The late Khalil Gibran wrote “let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit for love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mysteries is like a net cast forth and only the unprofitable are caught”.
After meeting Mona those words were no longer nebulous to my mind, they became the reality that we lived.
Mona had an insatiable curiosity to discover new things and new meanings to things which have been accepted as normal for generations.
She believed that there was always another meaning and another interpretation for almost everything.
In many ways she was a dreamer who created her own world in which she found her comfort zone.
The principles closest to her heart were fairness and justice, she would willingly sacrifice almost everything in the pursuit of justice for even someone she did not know very well.
She would prefer to do without many things she needed if she felt that others needed them more than she did.
I do not say these things because I want to glorify Mona and paint an illustrious picture of her life.
I say them because I have lived with her and I know that is the person she really was.
Earlier I said that she was a dreamer but let me hasten to say that she had no illusions about her evanescence in the world of here and now.
For the duration of the time we shared together she was always prepared for the moment when she would make the inevitable transition we commonly call ‘death’.
The uniqueness of our relationship was that we did not wear our marriage like a harness which fettered our own personal development and we never ever became stumbling blocks across each other’s paths, we truly valued the freedom of the human spirit.
When it was necessary for us to go our separate ways, there was no anger and animosity. That special bond we shared never died, our divorce lawyer told me that she had never handled a case like ours before because she did not see any grounds for divorce.
When Mona ascended from this life I felt like a part of me went with her.
I am someone who loves the night time, one night after her passing I was motivated to write the following.
Requiem for Mona George-Dill
Kissed and caressed
By the Zephyrs of night
While yonder stars,
Glitter from light-years above
The music of heavenly voices
Emanating from the ether
Mellifluously reaches my ear
Which arrests the melody
With gratitude and with longing
My nocturnal reflections
Bring to me memories of you
Memories of a spirit so gentle, so noble and free
Memories of a friend too soon gone
Like embryonic emotions
We emerged from within the mist of time
To walk for a while upon each other’s paths
Whether by kismet or chance
Our paths led in different directions
Still what we shared endured
Through the turbulent passage of time
From then to now
I will always recall that in you love qualifies
Hatred disqualifies
Sincerity aplenty abound
Envy and greed did not resound
Like the sun’s rays of beauty and warmth
Awaken sleeping flowers
So too did you light many paths and ways
With the radiance of your love
And the kindness of your heart
You, a true child of mother earth
Glad tidings to me you did bring
Singing as sweetly
As a nightingale announcing the coming of spring
The shadows of my fears and doubts, always disperse
When transformed into my thoughts of you
Remembering you as you were
Fill the emptiness and the spaces
Created by my need to find a friend.
Though darkness now obscures the day
We know it is not here to stay
In our hearts, you are alive and well
Many stories of you we have to tell
May your spirit rise untrammeled and unabashed
To soar in realms beyond space and time
Where you shall be truly wild and free
Maybe when I am conquered by the freedom of my years
I may stare out into the silence of the night
Counting the hours till my days are done
Wishing that I could see you, just once again.
Fare you well my dearest friend, fare you well
KGD
