Each Time We Grieve

Each Time We Grieve December 3, 2018

I’ve lived long enough to know that every

sigh opens a story, the way a mouthful of

water inflates a dry sponge to the form it

had when found in the deep.

 

My grandmother, for example, lives in the

mezuzah she brought from Russia, though

I can hardly see her face. And I feel her

son, my father, in the awl and chisel I

have, all weathered from his hands.

 

And to say your mother was kind holds

so many stories. I imagine all those she

touched, pausing where they are, to

think of her as I write this.

 

Yet we must go on, but never without

them. Even the bones of dinosaurs out-

waited the ice age to fertilize the flowers

that reanimated the Earth.

 

A Question to Walk With: Tell the story of someone you have lost and how they live on inside you.

This excerpt is from a book in progress, The Slow Arm of All That Matters.

 

*Photo credit: Kaboompics.com


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