Mom said you’d be seventy-two today and it made me think of how seventy-two you would look and sound and feel in this morning. How your baby blue eyes would shine between the soft creases of crow’s feet and lived-lines, and your grey hair would halo your smiling face as you sipped your sweetened coffee and doted on your children, and their children too. I can feel you, brightly shining, gently laughing, loving us all as deeply as you always have. And so I celebrate you still, fourteen years after the universe asked you to return to her, and I pray those wings you were given to fly have carried you peacefully, joyfully through the great wonder and mystery of it all.
damn brother. my mom's 79th was a few days ago and it was harder than i'd expeced. thank you for this.
"And so I celebrate you still..." this year marked 18 years since my mother returned and after many years of feeling so very lost in a world that could never speak of her, it was the poets who taught me how to continue to live with her. Things have felt shaky once more, thank you for this beautiful reminder of how to feel them close by within and around us.