Gestation

I'm pregnant with something
Ponderous, ominous.
It's hard to keep my balance
since I lost so much of my vision.
But in this waiting room
I dimly see we're all in
the same delicate condition.
I feel less alone
when I look away from my own
awkward form.

Diet of Grief

Death is hard to swallow,
and nearly always upsets my stomach.

The slippery truth of light leaving eyes,
the gritty reality of cooling skin,
the undigestible lump of loss and sorrow,
when swallowed, do not pass away with ease.
They leave an all-pervasive stomach ache.

I have eaten too freely of
the excruciating feast of the grieved:
bitter herbs washed down by vinegar.

Time will pass, has passed, does always pass
at the variable rate of grief-time:
4-hour days, long hours, sprinting years.

One day the death will be one whole year old,
annual feasts consumed without the lost:
Turkey, ham and beef roast,
pumpkin pie and birthday cake.

Then two, then five, then 20.
The calendar becomes the wonder page:
"I can't believe another year has passed ..."

One day a meal will not contain
a single item that the lost one liked
but only the flavors of a new life;
A dish of acquiescence, garnished well
with fruits new-ripened during days in hell.

Like a stream into a river

Jim Gardiner did not charm me when we met. He wasn't warm, not a hugger. He was frankly baffled by our easy intimacy with him, our casual love that we offered without a moment's doubt it would be accepted, returned, allowed to flourish in the brushy undergrowth of holidays, birthdays, picnics and other life passages.

He and my sister shared a love that surprised me with its tenacity. It was as though he thought he couldn't be loved, and as though she thought she couldn't love anyone else. It was hard to watch sometimes, sometimes it was a joy to observe.

They only got a year. A few years of wooing, a year of marriage, two years of heartbreak.

While I  loved  Jim because he loved my sister, he really shoe-horned himself into my heart in the time-honored fashion: by loving my child - more accurately, my grandchild. My daughter came to visit from Augusta, and we organized a picnic/fishing trip at Lacamas Lake.

Jim met Fiona, and it was instant mutual love.

They played peek-a-boo. They shared food. They took a walk, Jim acting as a tour guide through the wonderland of Western botany.

It was as though by opening his heart to embrace Cheryle, he had allowed a fissure to remain, allowing the love for this small person to enter and freshen and nourish the ground. Jim later told me he hadn't responded to a child like that since his daughter was born.

I could be wrong, but I like to think his acceptance of Fiona's fondness prepared the way for the flood of love he felt for his granddaughter, Ada.

It seemed natural that his affection for Ada created of tide of warmth and love for her brother Felix, our family, and those around him. While Jim was not a religious man, when I saw him around his grandchildren he seemed filled with grace and light.

Maybe it was just a reflection on the river of family times.