My lover sends me
flowers on Valentine’s
two bundles bright
flaming red tulips
always the same
one for me
one for you
two bundles, two vases
yours and mine
shared between us
better to give than receive
you always said
two bundles, one vase
too many
flaming red tulips
staring at me
too many in my vase.
I’m seven walking with Mom
arm in arm to the cemetery.
All Souls and All Saints
Visiting the graves of her
parents in the village that was
home. Here in the old country.
Mom black clothed. Mourning.
What is she thinking. Me
excited to be up this late.
Candles flickering on gray stone.
A cold November night. Solemn
Grandparents. I do remember
long ago they came to [...]
Poland. Krakow. November 1st
All Souls and All Saints. Night.
Pouring rain soaking mud wet feet.
Searching for the graves of the fallen.
Fallen Canadian airmen and soldiers.
Mom’s brothers. Dead too. Fallen.
A pilot, a soldier. No graves for them.
In a far corner of this cemetery
Poland. Krakow. November 1st
All Souls and All Saints. Night.
We find them in the dark wet
Mud [...]
I think our culture today, our North American culture, at least, does not provide us with any accepted guidelines to express our grief in public. I remember when my Oma died. Mom wore black for a year, allowing her, perhaps even permitting her to mourn. I went with her to buy new black clothes. I [...]
Be crazy. It’s all right.
It’s what you have to do, she said. Write down just how you feel. No one can tell you what to write or not write or how to say it. My Mom died 15 years ago. One minute she was alive and then she was not – no time, no preparation, nothing, [...]
After a while,
after the death of our loved one,
after some time has passed,
we bury the pain and lonesomeness deep inside.
No one seems to want to listen.
No one seems to want to hear
any more
after a while.
Why is this?
It is rare to be with someone to whom we can pour out our grief openly and spontaneously and [...]
We’re long time friends still sitting comfortably at the dinner table relaxing after a wonderful home-cooked meal. Beside me is my friend whose very best friend died recently. They had known each other for more than thirty years and her death came quite suddenly. I had met her only once, but we quickly discovered we [...]
“I never expected Mom to die. No, I did not.”
This is my response to the question a friend asked me at last night’s dinner party when I told her Mom had died recently. I think it is a rather insensitive question. But since we are friends and we are seated next to each other, I [...]
Back to the beginning of the ending.
Christmas passed quietly. My grief counseling sessions helped me to do what I could to celebrate with family and friends and to keep my emotions pretty much under control.
I sensed my family keeping an eye on me and whenever my eyes welled up with tears there was someone nearby to [...]
It was at that moment as I sat there at our dining table with my head in my hands that I realized I was probably not going to make it through Christmas if I didn’t get some professional help from a grief counselor.
When I think back to that emotional crisis moment for me, it’s strange, [...]