The Permanence of the Young Men

My father, also Donald Maciver, died thirty years ago this month on the 7 th of October 1984. I was with him when he died, well almost as he died in between me sitting at his bedside and going through to the kitchen. By the time I got back he had died. I remember being annoyed with him for not waiting for me, having spent many hours at his side.

He has been on my mind many times of late. He died at the age of 66 of lung cancer. He suffered much but in the end knew little about it as the cancer had affected his brain. I think I was probably unfair to him when he was alive and well, and judged him unfairly. I should have tried more to understand what happened in his life. I wish now that I had been more patient with him, asked more questions, listened more, though I suspect he probably would not have been keen to talk. But I should have tried.

He lost his younger brother, Alex John, aged 20, on active service in the Second World War. I hope to write his story on here soon, or at least as much as I know of it.

The following poem is in remembrance of them both. It's by the Scottish Poet, William Soutar, who himself served in the Navy on convoy duties in the First World War. It's called :

The Permanence of the Young Men

No man outlives the grief of war
Though he outlive its wreck:
Upon the memory a scar
Through all his years will ache.

Hopes will revive when horrors cease;
And dreaming dread be stilled;
But there shall dwell within his peace
A sadness unannulled.,

Upon his world shall hang a sign
Which summer cannot hide:
The permanence of the young men 
Who are not by his side.