for Finn Thilo Trommer, September 11, 2004-August 14, 2021
Though you said yes to something
that was not this life, your birthday
is no less a celebration. Though you
are not here to blow out candles,
not here to wake with balloons,
though you are here as disappearance,
though I meet this day with tears,
my heart still rises to revel in ways
your life still changes my life,
your life still changes the world.
It will never be finished, this love.
It will never be finished, this learning
what it is to be born, to die,
to live into ourselves, to choose love
again and again. Though tears.
Though ache. Though crumple. Though clench.
It will never be finished, this practice
of remembering love. Again. And again.
Posts Tagged ‘death’
On the Birthday of a Beloved Who Is Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged birthday, death, love on September 10, 2023| 20 Comments »
The Swirl
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, dream, grief, son on August 13, 2023| 29 Comments »
We’re traveling together, you,
me, your father, your sister. And
we’re laughing. You’re talking
about your classes for college,
and you’re nervous about seeing
a girl again, and I have this bright feeling
that you’ve passed some threshold.
You’re a firecracker, wild with potential,
and I can’t understand this swirl of worry
that churns through me like smoke.
It’s only after you race down the concourse
showing off your speed,
arms pumping, legs a blur,
your body quick and slender verb,
it’s only then when you don’t come back
I remember you already made a choice to die,
and in the dream I wail, battered again
by the bludgeon of immediate loss.
When I wake, I’m still wearing
the sweet perfume of promise and hope,
even as tears slip hot to the sheets.
It’s not easy, today, to rise, to step
into this world of heartache and courage,
this world you left, this world I love.
Almost Two Years After Your Death
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, grief, love, presence on July 15, 2023| 12 Comments »
I no longer pick up the phone to call you.
No longer expect you to walk in the room.
Eventually, the brain learns to expect
the absence, the ears learn to expect
the silence, the body grows accustomed
to the loss of your body and recalibrates
itself in space. But the heart, broken open,
is as full as it ever was.
Did I think it would be parched?
Now I know love as a wellspring,
a continual supply.
Never once has the heart felt empty.
There, every time I look, I find you.
On My Father’s Birthday
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, death, father, love on July 6, 2023| 6 Comments »
He was a big man,
and I loved the way
he would carry me—
swoop me up
in his strong arms
and float me around
the room.
Now that he is gone,
I carry the weight
of his love—
the enormity—
only to realize
he is still
carrying me.
New Trust
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, life after death, signs, trust on May 7, 2023| 5 Comments »
When the tiny white feather
floats above me in 17B,
when the full rainbow appears
as I drive from the airport,
when I feel inside me
a swelling, an opening door,
the rational part of me says,
it’s just coincidence,
but another part wades deep
in the currents of mystery
until I float on the waves
of what I do not understand—
they swirl me between worlds,
carry me homeward.
One Impossible Hug
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged body, death, hug, loss, love on February 25, 2023| 4 Comments »
my arms still recall
the slender stem of your body—
oh, sweet empty circumference
One Without a Path
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, love, mother, path on February 8, 2023| 7 Comments »
no footsteps, no matter
there is nowhere, not even death,
where my love will not follow
All Dressed Up
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, daughter, death, father, love on February 6, 2023| 15 Comments »
Before my father died,
he bought me a boxy
cream knit sweater
with crisp straight lines
and an elegant collar,
the kind of sweater
I imagine would be worn
by a woman more polished
than I. But my father insisted
on buying it, as if he
could see in me something
I couldn’t see myself.
Over a year after his death,
I still thank him every time
I slip my arms into the neatly
cuffed sleeves.
I thank him for dressing me
in his great belief in me.
It doesn’t matter
that I never left the house today—
that no-one else saw
how fine the weave,
how smart the cut.
If the sweater could speak
for my father, I imagine it would say,
Roxanne, you’re going to knock it
out of the park today.
All day as I do what life asks of me,
I am held by the love of my father—
a love that continues somehow
to grow. A love I still feel as close to me
as the sweater I’m wearing—
closer than that. Love as close
as the breath in my lungs,
as close as the words thank you
before they even reach my lips.
Not Expecting
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, mother, pregnancy, transformation on February 4, 2023| 2 Comments »
Tonight, I placed my hands on my belly
and recalled the first time I felt the flutter
of your body as it grew inside mine.
Oh, the thrill of that movement,
sweet proof of your being.
To be touched from the inside,
touched by life itself as it flourished
into trillions of cells. Oh,
to know life like that.
Even now, I can feel it,
the ghost of a kick,
can recall it as easily
as I recall sunshine on the skin.
After your death, is it strange
it feels like I carry you inside me again,
only this time I am the one
who is growing,
I am the one being formed.
While Skiing at Priest Lake, I Realize
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, life, miracle, present, skiing on January 28, 2023| 6 Comments »
And here is the miracle—
to find in grief not only sorrow
but a ravenous gratefulness for life,
to find in loss not only emptiness
but an unimaginable abundance.
It doesn’t happen in a day,
no, not even in a year,
but who said miracles
need be instantaneous.
Today I skied through a veil of trees
and forgot for a moment
anything but trees, but skis, but lungs.
I want to tell you in that moment,
there was no one to remember,
there was no one to look ahead,
there was no one except the human
who knew to place the next ski in front
of the other, knew to trust
the ragged saw of her breath,
knew that life is only as beautiful
as death.