Month: September 2024

It was hard sometimes to let your love in.

 
It was hard sometimes to let your love in.
It carried so much along with it. 

I saw and felt your bright smile and shining eyes,
like from a small shy child looking up at her older brother,
heart full and hopeful.
You seemed so fragile in those moments,
even though I was the younger one.

You fought so hard, for so long, to be well,
struggling to live and not live like this.
Through hospital visits,
procedures,
specialists,
an ignorant medical system,
relapse upon relapse,
you fought through it all
like defiant storm waves relentlessly pummeling granite cliffs, coastal rock shores, and soft sandy beaches.
Something’s gotta give.
Something’s gotta change.

Sometimes your pain and illness possessed you,
enveloping you with shame and stubbornness, 
despair and solitude.
You would disappear for days.

Sometimes you sought more,
sought peace.

Sometimes you simply said,
“I can't live like this anymore”.

I don't know when I started preparing myself for your death,
as all of this,
all of you,
slammed into me, 
just like those waves,
over and over.

The end was still a surprise.
The end still broke my heart.

We stood huddled in a semblance of a circle

 
We stood huddled in a semblance of a circle,
leaning against our neighbor or standing alone together,
honoring all that had died in her passing.

Rain wept from a gray shrouded sky,
and though we thought we were protected 
beneath the thick canopy of maple and hemlock,
there was no solace to be had. 
Heaven’s grief still reached us 
with heavy drops touching shoulders, thighs and stone.

We were a mess.
Eyes blazed red.
White tissues were soaked with salty tears and mourning snot
or were twisted and wrung to keep fingers busy.
The world cried with us as we spoke to her, 
to each other, 
to ourselves.

Reluctantly, we buried a part of her with overturned trowels.
A small hole for a large spirit.

Finishing what we never wanted to start,
the circle tightened.
Hands and hearts and hips touched. 
Heads bowed.
No one alone.

Singing of her gifts, 
her spirit reminded us of our own wildness, courage, tenderness and presence, 
and planted a seed in each of our hearts
to nourish.

The circle unfurled and we lived on.