Your Love for Me

On this last day of summer,
one month before your yahrtzeit,
I grieve you as if the
accident was yesterday.
I am astonished (again, and yet again)
by the power of grief.
I had almost forgotten.

Maybe it’s because
this morning the cloth
slipped off the file box
where I keep your papers
and I squatted down,
opened the lid
and read.
I had not had the courage
or the strength
to open this box till today.

They were all love poems.
Love poems to me.
From you.

I did not cry.
I made myself comfortable
and read all your little messages:
the Valentine’s cards
with glittery hearts,
the requests that I not
kiss my boyfriend in front of you,
the notes you wrote
about how desperately you missed me
when I was a single mother,
working nights,
and you were exiled at home
with this babysitter
or that one.

There was a fire of longing
in your little-girl voice
that made it impossible to imagine
we could ever be separated,
that made me nearly grateful
that you died instead of me
so that you would not have to endure
this anguish of loss.
I carry it instead.
I am the mommy.

It was only later this morning
when I turned on my computer
and read about the senseless execution
of Troy Davis
that I wept.
The tears burned hot in my throat,
streamed from my eyes,
a storm of sorrow
I was powerless to resist.
It rose again during
exercise class at the gym.
I had to leave,
flee to my car,
where I could freely sob.

I mourn the death
of every mother’s child now
as if it were my own.
The protective layer
has been stripped from my heart
and I am totally permeable.
A father’s wailing
at the grave site of his baby
penetrates every cell of my body.
And so does the sweetness of
a chickadee landing
on the stone of our garden fountain,
dipping to drink.

Soon it will be ten years
since you died.
I feel something shifting
inside my life now,
expanding my focus
beyond death,
beyond grief and loss,
beyond the fire of tragedy.
I make small moves in response,
refer mourners to bereavement groups,
minimize references to grief counseling
in my public profile.
I square my shoulders
and begin to look up and outward
toward the next step on my journey,
a journey that’s more about joy.

And yet,
my sweet little girl,
though the raging fire of loss
has subsided, mostly,
and glows now like a warm ember,
soothing, rather than punishing,
there are still days
like this one
when a sudden wind
blows in from the desert
igniting the flame all over again,
and I am consumed
with loving you,
with missing you,
with gratitude for how
completely you loved me.

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