As we continue through our time,
We learn to make friends with difficult loss.
Grief and mourning accompany us,
Like mist and fog on a gray autumn day.
Yet even in the bleakest moments,
We can remember fragments of joy.
Let us pause to reflect on the wonder of clouds,
The fall of rain, and the wind moving through the trees.
Thus we live with the ache of memories,
Letting their beauty and sorrow scatter like drifting leaves.
We love you always.
How to mourn you?
Only with detachment can I find room
For kindness and compassion towards you.
You struggled just as all do,
And I wish to think you did your best.
Some of your actions and words still linger with gray-tinged hurt,
But now I can feel sorrow over these rather than resentment.
When I speak at your service,
I will recount one of the few memories I have
That cast you in your best light.
May you find in this death peace from suffering,
An end to chasing illusory dreams, and the fade of your red anger.
I laid down the burden of these long ago.
Now may you do the same.
Let us gather chrysanthemums
For mourning in these perilous times.
Weave them into crowns of sorrow
For grief at lives taken in brutal war.
Scatter their petals on the wind
For sympathy with those who remain.
These are but the slightest gestures,
Tiny funereal floral tributes.
Do more where we can.
The train sounds its mournful cry.
They are gone now,
No longer present to hear the whistle,
To see the graffitied cars roll past,
To feel the ground rumbling beneath their feet.
I can say no more
Let us have a cup of tea
And offer the latest from China.
But I can hold them fast
In memory and by recounting the many stories
Of how they lived while they were here.
Love and all we shared does not disappear.
I see you now,
Your face turned away from me
And hidden in shadow.
You will be everywhere
As I move through this changed life,
The one I used to live with you.
The birds you rescued have fledged and flown the nest.
I am slowly getting the house organized.
When I go out, people ask where you’ve been.
Sometimes I still can’t bring myself to answer.
This grief is yet very raw.
I will survive, but I miss you so.