A cockerel crowed three times at dawn

In the grounds of the Retirement Home

When Cyril’s illness finally took him

Simultaneously to another world.

Son and daughter at his bedside

Shed genuine, heartbroken tears.

Both reflecting on all of the fifty-five

And sixty years they had lived

He had always been there for them.

Neither looked forward to the task

Of breaking the news to their own

Adult children that their beloved

Grandfather had been taken.

Later, when it came to collecting

His affects, all he appeared to own,

Apart from four changes of clothes,

And the obligatory few toiletries,

Was a tatty old shoe box,

Stuffed full of sundry items.

Seemingly, a lifetime of memories.

Although not a man of property

And had never seemed wealthy,

Not much to show for ninety years.

With lumps in their throats,

Brother and sister took it home

To his house to go through together

At their leisure over a coffee.

 

Many photos of their late mother,

Taken from Cyril much too soon.

Sepia snaps of his own parents

On their wedding day and since

With Cyril and his siblings growing up.

Shots of themselves at various ages,

In black and white and colour

And of his grandchildren, taken himself,

He’d been a keen photographer then,

But had never really done digital.

Photos of his two great grandchildren

That had been passed on to him.

What looked like a few old love letters

From his past which they didn’t like to read.

His birth certificate and those of his parents,

Service card from the army during wartime.

A little wad of bank statements

Which showed his works pension paying

For his keep at the retirement home.

But then the biggest surprise of all:

A building society savings book

They had not known he possessed

Containing a sum they couldn’t believe,

And a will which they had not known he made

Which left the sum of fifteen thousand pounds

To each of his two children.