Poem of the Week:Poem for my Mother and Father

I was going to post something different this week but something made me think I should post this one.

My mother and father were born 5 days apart in 1910 and died three months apart in 80 years later, my father in October 1990 and my mother in February of 1991. My mother after an illness that lasted between 15 and 18 years. You'd think I'd know exactly, but I don't. The poem says ten, but it was longer than that. It was a long, long time. I read a number of posts this week about people losing their parents. I guess that's why it feels like this is the time to share this poem. It's a loss we are never ready for.


POEM FOR MY MOTHER AND FATHER - APRIL 25, 1991

I want to bury my parents' ashes
Quietly
In an un-grave
A sweetly flowering tree peacefully renewing the earth
I want sunshine and blue skies and butterflies
And maybe an angel or two
To sing a silent, magic song and hold my hand
I'd like some wildflowers -- yellows and purples
And maybe some blue as well
And a mild, gentle breeze to kiss my cheek
I'd like greenness and laughter,
Some children playing, maybe, to remind me there's renewal
And then I'd like a picnic
Full of laughing and remembering the happy times;
The sad ones too, but gently, with sunlight on them
And maybe we could sing a song or two or share a favorite poem.
These parents are my babies now
And I want to protect them from any more pain
Because their dying wasn't sweet.
Ten years coming, it was long and slow and hard,
Their dying one death, though two events,
My mother, slowly/quickly fading
Body and mind failing in a subtle and coordinated dance
My real Mom disappearing way back,
Spirited away somewhere, herself and not herself
Each sad replica dying in turn,
Replaced by a paler, sadder clone
My father holding on,
Clinging vainly to those rare, cruel flickerings
of who she was once
Clinging too the false hope that he could somehow have her back
Trying to will her with the force of his love
Once more into the fierce, proud, vital soul she once had been
That struggle sometimes costing him the magic that was there
His eyes so focussed on a distant past
That he missed the sweeter moments of the now
Hard not to do it --
So confusing to have someone change so much,
and not change, too
It must have broken his heart; finally did, really...
But what I want to say is:
Her illness had them both
It does, I think, with couples so close
It may be only one body dying, but the lives and souls are joined
And everybody's got the disease
That's why we grieve so hard,
Because our way of being in the world gets lost
We lose each other and we lose ourselves, too
But sometimes, also, we're re-born
And that's scary and joyful and sad
And it's always lonely, because it has to be
Even if you have the best company in the world,
Even if the Universe is giving it's all to push you from the womb,
Still, it's a different universe, even though it's the same
And it's hard to share it
And that's why I'd like to bury my parents ashes quietly
In an un-grave
Because living and dying, alive and dead
We gave and still give birth to each other
And that's a very private thing
It's pain and love and creation all mixed up
And it's awesome
And terrible
And wonderful
And holy
And I don't understand it, but I know it's true
I've lived their death and been reborn
Each and both
Life and death, vastly different but the same
A circle, whole, unbroken and eternal
And that's why I'd like to bury my parents' ashes
Quietly,
A sweetly flowering tree peacefully reminding me
That they're not gone.

- Katherine E. Rabenau

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I hope you will all take a minute to remember that this is Autism Awareness Month. The following blogs and posts offer an opportunity to put a human face and heart on something which for most of us is just something we have heard about but don't really understand.

These are the Days
Forks Off the Moment - We are All Unique
Mother of Shrek
Full Soul Ahead
Down River Drivel
Look Me In The Eye