A Grieving Heart is a Door Ajar,

 Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #162

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Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows... ~William Shakespeare

 

Flight is but a haunted memory

so I don’t need wings to travel far

regret can be a boarded window

yet a broken door that stands ajar

heartache is a house that creeks and moves

like an old woman’s legs in winter tend to do

we hold our memories

and peer at grief

believing in ghosts

 others may never see

yet still they leave and appear

 like finger prints on glass

drinking from cups and saucers

we will never have

they follow and lead

they hold our hand

they make us stumble

yet help us stand

for yesterday was a lost child with tangled hair

today is a black bird with a lonesome stare

tonight is the moon’s reflection everywhere I go

and tomorrow a baby I shall nestle close

the reminders enter from near and far

broken and bent like a door ajar.

 

 

 

 

Dismal News in a Waiting Room 1972

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse #158

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There are some griefs so loud
They could bring down the sky,
And there are griefs so still
None knows how deep they lie,
Endured, never expended.
~May Sarto

 

Sorrow does not need a safety net

the ghosts of loss and regret never do

they walk through walls

and dance on high beams with eyes closed

resilient like a Maytag appliance….they survive floods

follow us to new homes holding our hand

even as we reach out ours to the world

they watch us sleep filling our empty glass as only grief can do

I have spent nearly 50 years holding this truth

you can try to brace yourself

or try to let it go

but it quietly waits

in the silence of knowing

and the clatter of forgetfulness

a patient child waiting to speak

whether you acknowledge it or not

it is there

a whisper of remembering

that can transfix or move you

right back to 9 years old in a waiting room

with words of sympathy upon a loved one’s lips.

 

The Little Girl Who Could Not Cry

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 118 hosted this week by the brilliantly talented Chrissa!

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Sorrow makes us all children again — destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is a red-hot kettle 

the one I was never meant to hold 

and my heart that burns with longing 

has not yet learned to let it go 

my soul yearns to go backwards 

and speak with the child I once was 

warn of hurt and danger 

preventing so many scars 

for I have learned to carry heavy burdens 

and how to fall slipping in regret 

trying to keep it all together 

holding tight to things not mine to get 

but like the Red-Footed Falcon 

freedom is the truest way 

and tears of loss and heartache 

were never meant to be caged 

you cannot carry an ocean nor a thousand buckets of rain 

so why would you carry everyone's sorrows 

and keep holding on to all the pain? 

you see every poem is a message 

 that my own heart needs to hear 

and drop by drop of ink and words 

have helped me find the tears. 

Our Hearts Always Hold Them Close,

the butterfly jar by lostinthisphotograph 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 63


Grief — the great redefiner of life. ~Terri Guillemets

Loss is a burden that we carry with us quietly

And sometimes others eyes do not see

Though it echoes loudly in the holders’ heart

With all the beauty that we touch and come to know

We hold on to love the hardest

Wanting its beauty to linger like a butterfly on display

“Stay with me a little longer my love”

Is what my heart always whispers

But this life has its own plans

Heaven has another time line

That our eyes cannot hold

When we must let go

Sometimes our heart still feels their touch

And still hears their voice in song

seeing their beauty in what remains

and their smile in others that share their last name

loss is a burden that we carry with us quietly

sometimes others eyes do not see

though it echoes loudly in the holders’ heart

those that we have had the blessing to love in this life

come to know a deeper freedom

and our spirits must let them go

but our heart always holds them close

no matter what skies they truly fly.

For Lauren and Seth

Grandchildren both in Heaven’s sweet embrace and always in our hearts.

This week it will be one year since my beautiful Granddaughter Lauren went to Heaven joining my wonderful Grandson Seth who went to Heaven before her in 2000.  Losing someone so young is a grief that is hard to capture in words.  It leaves a gaping hole in our heart and that cannot be filled by anything else in this world.  We hold on tightly to what we hold dear, and letting go is not an option for the heart.  All I can say is this; it will be a beautiful reunion when flying into Heaven’s gates, a beautiful reunion indeed!

Regret Is a Two Lane Road

Image Source

Linking with The Sunday Muse for Muse # 16 and Imaginary Gardens for The Tuesday Platform

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Life is an adventure in forgiveness. ~Norman Cousins

All the places I have been do not whisper in my ear like a shy child

It is the places I have never been but should have gone

That tap me on the shoulder in the middle of the night

Demanding my undivided attention

Regrets are like that

Cousins of a certain loss

Yet strangers

Divided like the lines on a road

Branches of the same tree that head in different directions

One is the grief of mistakes made

The other the loss of opportunities that no longer are ahead

That we should have grasped whole heartedly when we could

For the regret of our mistakes is a sorrow that can be forgiven

Sooner than a country mile

But forgiving ourselves for words unspoken or visits to loved ones never taken

Is a heartache that holds a certain agony

That can be a life long journey to let go.

Note:

My maternal grandmother had agoraphobia, and the only time she left her home was to vote.  As a child I never really realized the abnormality in it.  She just never went with us, and we would bring back dinner for her sometimes, even though she thought that you had to be careful about restaurants cause the food could be tampered with.   As years passed, and I had a home.  I settled into a routine of my own, and though I had gone on several trips out of state as a younger adult and into my 30’s I found myself having a certain anxiety with trips that went very far out of town.  I decided that I had agoraphobia on a grander scale.  I could leave my home, leave my town, but the minute I am heading on a long trip far away, I am in a mental episode of anxiety.  I think I have shared this before on earlier posts, but I felt this important to share again because it has caused me much regret when it comes to who I have visited and where I have gone. It seems I have really held myself back and stifled my own chances of seeing great things, or visiting those I hold dear.  The saddest part is, there are several people that I have lost the opportunity to see again, and I only have my own fear to blame.  This is a hard road to take when you carry that kind of guilt.  I can only say, I am working on it.  May your roads ahead be full of opportunities taken.  That is my wish for us all!

To Bear the Burden

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"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear."  ~ C S. Lewis

 


Grief is a long and heavy coat
 that winter cannot bear by itself.

It carries into the heat of summer
 stealing youth's folly and it's wealth.

It tarries through to autumn
where November's rains turn to snow

and tears not yet fallen wait
for remembrance to let them go.

Time lightens it's ominous burden
yet it's garment never truly tears.

For grief is a long and heavy coat
that must be placed in God's loving care.


Linking with Imaginary Gardens for "The Tuesday Platform"
Hello beautiful Toads. :-)

Where The River Ends

One Shot Wednesday Week #18

Our lives are like a river

each flowing a certain stream

as we try to go the distance

to the grand destination

we must reach

there are hazardous

twists and bends

that make us sway

and hard rocks and branches

we must cross along the way

yet we must remember

when we reach the final descent

that where  the river ends

is simply where the ocean does begin...

......and there we shall meet again.

For Seth 

The Empty Room

This poem was written many years ago by my stepdaughter Amber.  She lost her oldest child when he was merely 2 years old, but his smile lives on in our all our hearts, and in Heaven.

What good is a bed where no one will sleep?

And an empty room where one person weeps?

What good is a shirt that no one will wear?

Attached to memories of someone not there.

What good is a toy with no one to play?

Where laughter once was, but did not stay.

What good is a book that sits unread?

Filled with words that are no longer said.

What good is a picture where no one smiles?

As good as a mother without a child.

By Amber Whitworth
Written for Seth