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Lani Theresa Rose's avatar

Thank you, Cheryl. Thank you for all the honesty and beauty you share. It is also 30 years anniversary this year since the death of my mom, too. I wrote a poem to her on her 25 year anniversary, and I just so dearly wish to share it with you. I hope its OK to do so here. I won't be offended if this post gets deleted.

STILL GONE

It’s only been forever, never. And a day.

Since twenty-five years grated by

But do you know what?

You haven’t aged a day, in death

Not a shadow more.

You have, however,

Grown wiser

So please, Mom

I want to tell you

About the secret

I’ve kept to myself:

I didn’t entirely believe

That after all these nows,

Elegant sorrows

And thirsty memories

That you’d still be gone

I had decided

Time should stretch

So far, as far

To come back to itself

Fuller and swifter

Stunning and strong

I believed this waiting

Would bring something

Grander than hurt

And rupture

Your silence

Back into song

But seems life

Is a flatline

Yearning toward shape

Until death arrives

With an swift flourish

To circle the end

Twenty-five years

Urgently tells me

That secret of mine

Is a winter’s hope,

A hungry egg

A cruel lullaby

Such simple truth

Assails my younger self

Slips down my throat

And rips up my tidy grief

Dropping pink petal

Confetti onto your grave

I hear the dream of you

Just in time

For my age to touch yours

And I recognise my face

Upon your forever

Now, I finally see myself

We almost stand together

Only I am arriving

You are still gone.

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Megan Dunlop's avatar

I am still in the relatively fresh hell of losing my dear mom just 15 months ago. And weeks after her celebration of life, I came home to NYC to the Covid shut in. Thank-you for the reminder that something is brewing in this grief, that the pain will make sense and that when turned into something (who knows what, yet) more will make sense, and she will be shared. She, too was a lover of stories, told many a great one and raised us on adventure. Sending love on this anniversary. I'm so glad this turned up today, the 2 year anniversary when her, my sister and I gathered in Toronto to hear her end of life wishes and she read us her eulogy, as she new her end was near. This was a needed balm to the earlier pain of today. Thank-you.

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