The End is Always the Beginning

 

Written for Shay's Word Garden Word List ~ Autumn

Come join us!

Thank you Shay for another wonderful inspiring list!

Looking back, I realize, it all began in Autumn.

The goodbye that stung hard and cruel like a wasp in summer.  That is when I learned to smoke like a man;

not pipes nor slims, but sadness.

It is a long harsh cigar, sadness.

It can leave a rasp on the throat and the heart.

Now I am certain, if my soul could sing, it would probably sound like grackles,

loud and pestering

 lacking in the enchanting grace of doves and poppies that once filled those same lungs.

Silence has a scream that can never be quiet, and years of that sound have a way of fraying the edges and making yellow what once was white.

There is an empty chair inside me. It is mixed tweed and always perfect with a scent of roses from another time. You only sit there when I write poetry.

For regret has a way of holding on to the pain. It always remembers, like the IRS, children, and my heart.

Ink Has Been My Anthem

“Sometimes you never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” ~ Dr. Seuss

Ink has been my anthem

And paper is the hands that hold the dead flowers I long to save.

The years have moved on as fast as a child at play,

but my heart looks back in slow motion the way a teenager heads to chores.

Yesterday held something priceless; a treasure that cannot be replaced like coins in a purse.

Each soul that spoke to my heart comes with me poised and lovely into tomorrow.

We speak of older times; the memory of birth and dying.

The conversations long since closed are re-opened like boxes after the big move.

I pull them out one by one and re-hear your voice within my heart.

Soft like a silk sheet I wrap myself in the thought of you,

and sorrow both comforts and hurts at the same time.

When I was a child, I sang to ease those pains.

Belting the same tunes like a mockingbird in October.

Voices carry and music lifts us to places our feet can no longer take us.

That is why I write poetry and that is why I sing.

Linking with Shay's Word Garden Word List where this week the featured writer is my lovely friend Susie! Thank you Shay for another wonderful word list!!

Also linking with the Muse.

 

Lost Is a Place with Broken Wings,

 

When I was a little girl, I lost my silly star-studded sunglasses in the booth of a Big Boy restaurant in Dallas.  I still remember the feeling that hit me when I realized they were not still on my head as we got back in the car.  In tears, I begged my daddy to go back in to retrieve them, and even though he did, I still remember that distant memory vividly.  Some things no matter how small they are, stick with you like a silken slip on a July day.  The feeling of loss can have a mighty punch; one that we can never forget.

Lost is a place with broken wings

Like an injured bird where it does not belong

And once you have lingered there long enough

You forget you could fly all along

I searched for you in reflections

Not just mirrors but the eyes of the old

In their grief and brilliant memories

I heard your voice in each story told

Lost is a place with no directions

Yet signs around every bend

When you are staring hard into yesterday

Today gets blown away in the wind

I lost you one summer morning

Before winter was due to unfold

Now I only remember August

As a summer that was way too cold

For lost is a place with broken wings

Like an injured bird where it does not belong

And once you have lingered there long enough

You forget you could fly all along.

Photography by Rodney Smith

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 219

This week we are remembering a dear Muse friend Beverly who has recently passed.  Rest in peace dear Bev. 💖

Proof of Our Travels

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 156 hosted this week by the incredible talent Shay!

Come join us!

“It is not down in any map; true places never are.”  ~ Herman Melville

I am the daughters and the sons

the inheritance you did not expect

and the one your eyes will never see

I am the hole in the knee of your favorite jeans

flowers blooming that killed your back to plant in the spring

I am the late-night poems

the ones you did not know you could write

the true love you never spoke of

I am the callus hands of regret

the scars from splintered decks and wayward falls

the weight of cares that you have gotten good at holding

and then even better at trying to hide

I am the lines around the mouth and eyes

going different directions like roads on a map

the perilous journey of a westward expanse

the kind that leaves it’s mark on every pioneer

lines of a poem upon your face

I speak truth through silence

the kind that even a blind man could truly see.

 

 

 

 

The Waves of Grief

 

  

The ocean has its ebbings — so has grief. ~Thomas Campbell

I recently asked a dear loved one who has been struggling with Covid, how they were feeling. Their reply was, “it comes in waves”.  I was relieved to hear that they were not constantly feeling awful, but as I lingered on their words, it occurred to me how grief can be like that.

When I think back on the memory of my earliest loss, it seems like ages ago.  Sitting at a hospital back in 1972 with nine-year-old legs dangling and swinging from the hard waiting room chairs. I was unaware of what words truly awaited me.  A child’s heart is a mansion of hopes, full with the unknowing of what can be lost. With all that we had gone through during the last few years with my mother suffering with mental illness and physical pain, I still was not expecting the news that would come my way.

I have written about that day and the loss of my Mom many times, but the memory of it has been relived in my heart and mind over and over again.  Like that description of illness, it ebbs and flows as waves do.  It comes to me in the face of mothers, and the cries of children in their arms. Sometimes it is in the silence of what is, and other times it is in the loud clamor of what will never be.  It can overtake me like an ocean, or merely sprinkle like a christening, but either way, it envelopes and then gradually lets go, drifting away like a ship at sea.

It has been almost 50 years since the day I lost her, and though time has a way of easing the ache, I have learned that grief is not something we ever completely lay down like paddles of a canoe.  When we lose someone, we love in this world, they still hold a special place within our heart that no one else can fill, and in our day to day life, many things can serve as a reminder of what we miss so deeply.  In those moments, I can once again be the child in a waiting room with news too hard to hold all at once.  Yes, grief comes in waves whether it is yesterday or decades ago, and like that child so many years ago, my heart has learned this lesson over and over again.

 

I dedicate this to all those mourning in this world, and to Amber Whitworth, my beautiful daughter who not only has endured great loss, but leads the grief ministry at her church.

 

Leaves Upon an Oak

Linking with the Flash 55 at Verse Escape hosted by the amazing and beautiful talent Joy!

 "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."  ~ Mother Teresa

I see my sons in the growth of wheat fields and old men upon the streets

in the beauty of reaching out to give I see the granddaughters I will someday meet

for we are all connected like roots and leaves upon an oak

learning to hold on together

and then learning to let go.

Thank you Joy for a wonderful prompt that you provide every month!  Wishing you and everyone on blogger a beautiful Holiday season, staying safe and keep writing!!

The Expansion of Grief

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 138  Come join us!

"Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad"  ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I am not built of brick and mortar

nor were you

wide open spaces are always at risk to suffer damage in winter’s frost

so the world’s sorrows always seeped in like a flood

beyond ego’s edifice

beyond flesh and bone

tears became a lingering fog

of the words one can never forget

and your eyes spoke each one like mockingbirds

moving through every cloud

it was a place one could get lost in

so I learned to close my eyes

and I became your distant forest

for you were too high up in the clouds

to ever realize you were so lost

nor see that I was longing to be found.

Everyday In Heaven

"One Father's day when I was around 8, I asked my Dad why there was never a "kids day".  His resoponse was timely and sure, he simply said, "because kid's day is everyday"!  I was certain he was trying to make me laugh and nothing more.   It was not until I was an adult that I really comprehended the truth in those words."

(My Stepdaughter Amber, and her son Seth.)

Many years later I became a parent myself, and through all the sweat, tears, blood, pain, and squeezing my husbands hand so that he would not feel left out in the agony, I gave birth to a 7 pound baby boy.  At that very moment my view on everything was never the same.  What had mattered in the past was truly passed, all in one babies cry.  Nothing else mattered from then on.  It was like a slate had been wiped clean, or I had amnesia to everything that existed  before.  My focus was on a little one in my arms, and nothing more.  As time went by I came to understand the idea that was behind my father's words. 

Now I have many grandchildren, and that is a whole world of it's own.  In many ways to me it is like a little bit of Heaven right here on earth.   I have 10 grand children ranging in age from 14 years to 8 months, and they are all amazing, but there is one that I do not get to see any more.  His name is Seth, and today is his earthly birthday.  You see he passed away when he was only 2 years old.   It was the year 2000, and that time is etched in my heart and memory like a scar that can not be removed.  Today, August 13th, Seth is 12 years old  in Heaven.

In my heart I feel that birthdays in Heaven are probably not the way we experience them here.  I envision every day to be a celebraion there.  Loved ones being reunited, and those that are finally able to see God's face dancing and rejoicing.   I imagine it is not something we can truly grasp in our minds at the point we are at here on earth, but I have faith that Seth knows these joyous treasures.

This post is not meant to be sorrowful, bitter, or melancholy.  For me, it is truly a celebration of a life, just as a birthday truly is here on earth.   It is a recognition and remembrance of a precious child that filled our lives with so much joy in such a short time.  I know in my heart that everyday in Heaven is a beautiful jubilee for our precious Seth, and like my Dad once said, "everyday is kids day" in Heaven.

Happy Birthday Seth!

Heaven has been blessed with your wonderful smile for 10 years.

One day we will smile there with you. :-)

Balloons for Heaven

When my children were young we had a precious tradition that my step daughter started that her daughters still do to this day.  In the late 80's, we lost several family members way too soon.  The youngest of these was Heather. She was merely 4 years old when she was in a car accident that took her, and her 27 year old Daddy.  They were on their way to our house that day, and our whole family was forever changed by that agonizing experience. 
Sometimes when you go through something that devestating, you try to find ways to have hope and solace.  One of the ways that we did that ,was thought up by little Amber.  It was something special that we did whenever the kids would receive a balloon at a party or restaurant.  The moment we got outside, and to the car, the kids would look to heaven, and give their balloons to Heather.  It was such a simple, yet awesome act of faith and love, that gave us all hope in a time of grief.
That has always kept me aware of how powerful the faith of a child truly is.  We certainly can learn so much from a child.  I have learned my greatest lessons from my children.


What has a child in your life taught you?

Words That Ring True...

This song by Mary Chapin Carpenter was never on the radio, but I think it is an awesome song. I love the line: of all the things that finaly desert us pride is always the last thing to go. It is so true.

"It Don't Bring You"

Well I know it ain't been roses lately, baby, it's just been thorns
And no matter what we do, nothing seems to change
Love has always been my shelter, for you it's been a storm
But for a while I thought we'd almost beat the rain

Now there's a hole here in my pocket where all my dreams have gone
Fallen out like so many nickels and dimes
And last of all you, you'd always been my good luck charm
I should've known that luck's a waste of time

'Cause it don't bring you love if you don't love
And it don't bring you time if you ain't got time
And it don't bring you strength, baby, if you ain't strong
And it don't bring you kindness if you ain't kind

Now there's a whole lot of life to be unsure of
But there's one thing I can safely say I know
That of all the things that finally desert us
Pride is always the last thing to go

But it won't bring you love if you don't love
And it won't bring you time if you ain't got time
And it won't bring you strength, baby, if you ain't strong
And it won't bring you kindness if you ain't kind

And now I wish you only roses, baby, without the thorns
And I hope your dreams are always within reach
And I wish you shelter, baby, from all your storms
They scared you, but they never seemed to teach

That I can't bring you love if you don't love
And I can't bring you time if you ain't got time
And I can't bring you strength, baby, if you ain't strong
And I can't bring you kindness if you ain't kind
And I can't bring you kindness if you ain't kind

Let Us Not Forget Memorial Day 2010

And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood



It is sad to think that when most of us consider Memorial Day, we simply see a 3 day weekend and a Monday off with a backyard BBQ. We rarely extend our thoughts past that point. We need to forget this concept,and remember what truly matters.

The word memorial in the dictionary is described as an object that serves as a focus for memory of something, usually a person (who has died) or an event. This could be a fountain, sculpture, or a gravestone. Memorial day was originally commemorated right after the civil war as a way to unify the people, and honor those who died in that war. Later it became a memorial for all soldiers lost from all previous wars, and as time goes on, all wars that have taken place since.

When I fully grasp the significance of this day, remembering the lives lost, and the ones forever changed, I can't help but be drawn to the grieving heart of so many mothers of soldiers lost, and fallen on the battlefield. Each one, was once a baby in her care. That thought has a magnitude that really opens your eyes, and your heart. Sometimes when the hurt is not right at our own front door step we do not comprehend the ultimate loss.

Now holding my little baby grandson in my arms, I can only hope that the freedoms his great grandfathers fought for, will allow him to have a full life, not just a long one, but one filled with the liberties so many gave the ultimate sacrifice to protect. Let us not become complacent or forget,not just in remembrance of our great grandfathers, but for the future our great grandchildren.

God bless all soldiers, those fallen, and the ones bravely standing today.