Finn, the larkspur are nearly done blooming now,
the tall stalks are scruffy with seed pods where
the dark blue petals used to be.
Is it strange to give you the garden report?
Today is four years since you chose to leave
this world of bindweed and deep red dahlia,
this world of millipedes and green beans
dangling on their vines. The sky is thick
with smoke from a wildfire not so far away.
It was a relief when it began to rain
while I was picking snapdragons and
sunflowers, zinnias and lavender.
I didn’t mind getting drenched
while I filled five vases with flowers,
four vases for our home and one
your father and I took to your grave.
I felt so alive in the middle of the storm,
arranging the blooms in vases just so
while the water dripped from my hair, my nose.
Felt so alive as I smelled the air and spoke
to you and the flowers and sky.
Today my friend Wini told me one way
to keep life sacred is to ask the holy to come.
Please, I said as I stood in the rows.
Please, come. Is it possible the asking itself
is the bridge from the everyday to the holy?
Because I felt it. There in the rain
with my grief-bent heart. There beside
the calendula, aphids and all. Hair plastered
to my head. Tears on my face. Memory
of you writing I love you in the carrot bed.
Me making bouquets for a difficult day.
Even when it hurts, the holy.
Posts Tagged ‘loss’
So Alive
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, grief, holy, loss on August 15, 2025| 22 Comments »
Morning
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, grief, loss, sun on July 7, 2025| 6 Comments »
By the time I realized
I was dreaming of him,
it was too late.
Already, the dream
was vanishing like night,
like dew.
For an hour I lay there,
eyes closed, grasping
at glimpses. Losing them.
All I was left with:
He was happy.
So was I.
Finally, I opened my eyes
to this world where
he is not. And yet.
The sun was here warming
the bed. More truly, the sun
was not physically here.
The sun is somewhere
far, far, far away,
but that doesn’t stop it
from transforming
the whole room.
Two Mothers
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged candle, connection, loss, mothers on May 4, 2025| 2 Comments »
lighting a small candle tonight
for your child as you
light a small candle for mine—
from hundreds of miles and years apart
we rhyme
Doors Where I Have Knocked
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged change, door, loss, opportunity on February 6, 2025| 2 Comments »
Door of forgiveness that’s never locked.
Door of dreams. Door of god.
Door of contentment without a knob
that can only be entered with empty hands.
Door of tenderness that opens with breath.
Thick door of safety. Wide door of rest.
Windowless door to the future. Hingeless
door of hope. Door of patience. Door of no.
Door that requires I take off my name
before it will let me in. Door of prayer.
Trapdoor of sin. Door of courage.
Door of less. Door where the password
is always love. Trick door that appears
when I’m too weak to move. Door of
the heart where someone knocks back,
where I listen as if I might understand.
But it was the unwanted door of loss—the door
where I didn’t chose to knock, forged
from despair and gnarled wood—
that was the door that changed me for good.
When Everything Has Been Stripped Away
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, ice floe, loss, surrender on December 1, 2024| 5 Comments »
It’s like when the ice floe
moves through the river bed
ripping out any ice
winter has set, until
the whole channel is
roil and rush and wild
upheaval. I remember
what that was like
after he died—
when hours, days,
whole months, were
stripped of all skin
and all that was left
was the naked, beating heart.
I thought that was what it meant
to be stripped, but then,
I remember the first time
I knew for sure if I could have
my boy back, I wouldn’t.
Not if the world stayed the same.
It was a useless bargain,
anyway. But I knew
it was selfish to wish
him back to this world
to ease my own pain.
That was the moment
my whole emptied being
understood there was
more to lose. And I don’t know
if we could say that I chose it
or that life chose it for me.
I was standing in the drive
beneath the evergreen tree.
Everything changed then
when even my useless desire
to bargain with death
was stripped from me.
Today as the ice floe
tears through the canyon,
I listen as it alters
the landscape. Trunks of trees
bash against the rocks.
The rocks themselves tumble
in cold, thick waves.
Nothing to be done,
save surrender to the tumult.
Inside me, my heart beats, untamed.
Yes, I think. That is
exactly what it was like.
Just a Thing?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, object, objective correlative, ring on October 13, 2024| 6 Comments »
I’ve worn it since the day he died,
this ring that was my son’s.
A simple band—not flashy.
Plain silver inlaid with white.
I touch it when I think of him.
I think of him when I touch it.
My thumb has memorized
it’s smoothness, its edges.
I know it now as well
as once I knew his cheek.
I wear its secrets,
and do not ask it to tell.
One winter, I lost the ring.
It felt like losing him again.
I know. It’s just a thing.
But it’s not. It was his ring.
Changing Rhythm
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anapest, joy, loss, meter on October 4, 2024| 8 Comments »
At the edge
of the field
was the bank
where the boy
used to stand
and throw rocks
for the joy
of the splash
and now
his mom
stands there
alone
sometimes
she throws
a rock,
surprised
each time
when the joy
of the splash
is still there.
After Many Weeks of Sun
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, loss, rain, sun on June 15, 2024| 8 Comments »
I woke to rain,
in love with rain,
and the rain made its
soft rain music on the roof
and I listened to rain
in the rain-soaked dark
until my dreams were rain
and my waking was rain
and the morning was rain, rain, rain—
scent of rain in my lungs,
shine of rain in my eyes,
and the green song of rain in the grass,
and I gave my whole self to the rain
not thinking of anything else I had lost,
only rain in my thoughts,
only rain until I thought of you
and then somehow you were the rain.
Coming Home the First Time after Our Son Died
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged compassion, connection, friendship, grief, help, loss, love, receiving on May 22, 2024| 20 Comments »
Someone had taken small rocks and shaped them
into a heart in the center of our drive
so when we arrived, we knew we were not alone.
At the front door, we stepped over
another small heart made of stones
filled with blue petals of larkspur,
golden petals of sunflowers,
the tiny red petals of geranium.
We walked into our home
to find wildflowers in a vase on the counter,
our fridge filled with fruit, soymilk and hummus,
the shelves lined with cans and boxes of tissues.
There were love letters tucked into every room.
The house itself was quiet,
too quiet without the boy who wasn’t there,
but it was not a lonely silence.
Those were the days when I learned
to say okay every time someone offered help.
Can I bring you lavender lotion? Okay.
Can I make you a meal? Okay.
Can I pick up your mail? Okay. Okay.
What a gift to be carried by others,
to learn by heart the sacred bond
between those who are broken
and those who offer their hands
to cradle the ones who are broken.
Years later, those same small stones
still grace our front porch,
though the shape of the heart
has been rearranged many times.
As has mine. I want to remember
how we need each other.
The petals I add never stay.
The love infused here has never gone away.
Making Peace with My Inner Fire Fighter
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fire, grief, inner conflict, loss, trust on April 4, 2024| 22 Comments »
She’s always ready to run to the rescue,
trained in putting out housefires,
wildland fires, grease fires, electrical fires.
Explosions? She’s prepared to vent,
quench, flank and set up a collapse zone.
Child swallowed a ring?
She arrives in minutes.
Accident on the street? She’s pulling on
her uniform before the call is over.
She’s saved me thousands of times.
She’s always been like this—
keen to fix any problem. Capable. Strong.
I’m stunned by her abs, her biceps,
her focus as she goes where she’s needed.
Who could blame her for wanting
to put out this fire that’s been flaring
in me for almost three years.
Please, I say, don’t put it out.
It just needs to burn.
She eyes me strangely.
But it’s taking down whole structures,
she says. I nod.
Whole structures, I agree.
So much I knew is now ash.
But—she says, extinguisher in hand.
Please, I say. It’s okay if it all comes down.
I’m thinking of how much more I can see
as unnecessary things I’ve built submit.
It is in her to fix. To save. To make things better
in the way she knows how.
But she is learning to trust me in this
as I am learning to trust the wisdom of flame.
She shakes her head and walks away.
I watch as the fire continues to blaze.