Memorial

the most shocking sense about the death of another is the finality of it. it is total absence, with no scents nor sounds. Once there was a presence, now there is no substance. and like a an old pressed flower, it fades, though the pages against which it has rested may have an imprint, left upon another, even when it is gone.

we know you were here, and our memories do not betray us. though they gray with the age of time, the imprint remains within us, even if it is muddied a bit by a dreary rain. we may even forget the face, until we have to glance at a photograph to bring clarity to that muddied imprint.

we who remain behind grapple with a transition that took no amount of time, as they passed from material to another realm, while we remain gaping at the shell, dumbstruck by the lack of movement…

some may find solace in releasing all memories.

some may find solace in touching the cold, hard shell.

and some may find no solace, choosing to remain inconsolable, as if the one who died was solely responsible for leaving those who remained.

they are gone. we are here. how we incorporate that finality into the fabric of our hearts is our journey. it is not really their memorial, they have no need for it. it is ours.

 

the window

i had a friend…intensely dear…who would wax poetic about the aftertaste of mocha, latte, and anything amaretto. she did not like coffee, she would proclaim, but the taste was a mnemonic link with her past. so she drank it, gulped it. like a never-ending rosary, she recited the line that it was necessary…

there were lines in her face. the ones that never left. the ones the foundation tried to hide. the ones that forced their way through a smile. she could not hide from them. for they were her history.

but i saw love in those lines. i saw gentleness. i saw a passion for life. not the fading years. not the fading promise…

in the stillness, i like to sit at my red and white checkered tablecloth, the candles lit, the flames flickering against reflecting panes, and remember those lines…the ones i said, the ones she said. they were not captured in the wind, nor written in a thousand poems, nor remembered on the five hundred miles home. but somewhere they are etched on a window beyond this place, beyond this time...