Grief & Loss
Poetry for the losses that change a life—child loss, pregnancy loss, remembrance, anniversaries, and the love that keeps existing after goodbye.
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Three and a half hours. Two hundred and ten minutesbetween helloand a goodbyeno mother should everhave to learn. People measure timein birthdays,in milestones,in anniversariesthat mark the passingof another year. I learned to measure yoursin minutes. A number so smallit could fitinside an ordinary afternoon. An appointment.A long drive.A movie. Things the worldcan lose three hours…
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Before the world knewhow little timeit would give us, you belonged to mein a way no clockcould measure. Beneath my ribs,there was a daughter. A whole little universefolded into the darknessof my body. I had already begunthe quiet work of loving you. The kind that happensbefore introductions,before birthdays,before anyone elsecan understandthat a mother has alreadymade…
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I have almost heard your footstepsin a hallway full of children. Almost imagined your laughterrising above the television,your voice arguing with your brothersover somethingnone of you would rememberby morning. I have almost boughtthe extra Christmas present. Almost pictured another backpackleaning crookedly against the wall. Almost called out five nameswhen supper was ready,forgetting, for one merciful…
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Midnight comes,and the calendar turnslike it hasn’t done anything wrong. October seventeenth. The world is asleep,but somewhere inside mea woman is still becoming a motherto a little girlshe will have to learnhow to love without holding. Eleven years. I have lived whole livessince the day you were born. I have packed lunches,washed blankets,kissed scraped knees,survived…
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A remembrance for Darcy and the stories, laughter, travel, kindness, and stubborn love of life that illness never managed to erase.
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Darcy knew a little boy was coming and would carry his name; that knowledge becomes one small piece of peace inside a cruel goodbye.
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Before goodbye arrived, Darcy got to hear the name Theodore Darcy Patrick and know a little boy would carry part of him forward.
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Before February took him, Darcy knew a little boy was coming and would carry his name into the future.
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The moon could not return what was lost, but beneath it she learned to stop asking the sky to rebuild a life only she could keep living.
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Even the wind can carry back what memory tried to bury, touching old names, old places, and the ache of what once mattered.
