Missed signals

HELLO
Hi is such a simple word,
A greeting, however fleeting
To acknowledge another being.
Ignored and unresponded,
It becomes a rebuff.
A hurt, Enough to bruise the heart.
Trust and affection turn shy,
I ask why?
Perhaps he didn't hear.
Was too near exhaustion to reply,
Preoccupied with boyhood dreams.
But still I cry.

This sad little poem slipped through the cracks when we were assembling Wendy's poems and stories for the book of her Selected Works - although if I had found it I don't think she would have let me include it in the book. I came across it among her old letters. Reading her diaries (I'm up to 1985) I've seen her complaints about my behaviour fall off to become quite rare by the early 80s; by then we had become a smoothly functioning team, and our lives had become more relaxed. Our nest was empty, our social life less frenetic and stressful, very enjoyable overall in fact. We had some wonderful European holidays, often tacked on the end of my interesting assignments for WHO in Geneva or at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. Also, from about the mid-1980s we managed to get back to New Zealand and Australia at least once every year until 1999, always, until our second visit in 1999, without a dent in our savings: my fare was paid by some agency or other,and frequent flyer points paid Wendy's way. (I paid both our air fares that second time in 1999 so we could take part in the 50th anniversary celebrations of my graduation from medical school). Nonetheless, it's unbearably sad to read her complaints to her diary about my shortcomings. I suppose I can take comfort that these complaints were few and far between, only 2 or 3 in 1981 and 1982, only once each in 1983 and 1984. If only I'd known, if only I'd picked up those signals of distress while she still lived! I suppose these signals balanced out though: there were rare occasions when she tried my patience to breaking point. Perhaps there aren't many married couples who survive living together at close quarters for 54 years without a blemish - an angry word, tears, even almost coming to blows once or twice. But those blemishes got fewer and fewer as the years passed. I don't remember any in our last few years together. I hope her diaries when I get to those last few years will confirm my memories.