Laments While Life Goes On

Today would’ve been Jud’s 78th birthday.

Life, achingly slow in my early teens,  today, like finely ground sand races through the hour glass towards my finish line.  Didn’t I just have my annual physical?  Is it time  again to put out the trash?  Where did the week go?

This morning I read a poem, sent yesterday from the Writer’s Almanac.

Lament by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Listen, children:

Your father is dead.

From his old coats,

I’ll make you little jackets;

I’ll make you little trousers

From his old pants.

There’ll be in his pockets

Things he used to put there,

Keys and pennies

Covered with tobacco;

Dan shall have the pennies

To save in his bank.

Anne shall have the keys

To make a pretty noise with.

Life must go on,

Though good men die;

Anne, eat your breakfast;

Dan, take your medicine;

Life must go on;

I forget just why.

To all who’ve lost someone, I lament your empty place with mine.

If any have escaped such loss, it’s not a day for cheering the rest of us up or on.  Laments are good for body and soul, honoring ones gone and the truth life’s a gift but also hard and not always understood.

So today, I remember Jud, especially,  with tears and thankfulness, but resist staying stuck in place.

The kids are coming for supper and I’ve got to begin  my Swedish Death Cleaning.

That’s part of why I love Mary Oliver’s words,

“We shake with joy, we shake with grief.

What a time they have, these two

housed as they are in the same body.”

 

 

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