The spring season evokes for me memories of loved ones who have passed away as well as reflections on my own mortality.

I recall verses from Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: “Lo! Some we loved, the loveliest and best that time and fate of all their vintage prest, have drunk their cup a round or two before, and one by one crept silently to rest.

“And we, that now make merry in the room they left, and summer dresses in new bloom, ourselves must we beneath the couch of earth descend, ourselves to make a couch – for whom?

“Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, before we too into the dust descend; dust into dust, and under dust, to lie, sans wine, sans song, sans singer and – sans end!”