Remembering You...
When grief sneaks up on me.
Remembering you on wheels,
staples and patches of skin.
Surprised I wasn’t fearful,
your heart glowing from within.
Remembering your long hair.
Teaching me to braid.
There’s always music playing.
Never wanting it to fade.
Remembering your smile,
your kind and generous ways.
Always caring for others.
Nothing getting in the way.
Remembering your craft,
loving working with your hands.
Building all kinds of things.
Always making new plans.
Remembering your love,
the family we had.
More years I had with you
than with my own dad.
Remembering your wounds,
soothed by pleasing others.
Bodily and spiritual scars
hiding deep beneath the covers.
Remembering your illness.
Not knowing what to do.
What sent you back to this?
Why is it taking you too?
Remembering the call.
She told me you were found.
You’re no longer in pain.
Knees and tears hit the ground.
Remembering your journey,
So much I’ll never know.
The path was yours to take.
It’s time to let you go.
Remembering you're Grandpa.
Five years—our hearts still ache.
Like yesterday, but still so long.
Telling your story for their sake.
Remembering your laugh.
Feel your shining light.
It always brings you back.
You’re only out of sight.
Marty’s obituary
The first many verses of this poem hit me when I was just about to go to bed. I couldn’t stop the flow of words and tears as they poured out from some hidden compartment I didn’t realize they were festering in. All of my thoughts were in verse.
Soaked sleeves / midnight writing / letting it out / no longer fighting.
I went to sleep and woke first thing in the morning with more verses and more tears. Isabel woke up and asked if I was ok?
“Yes—actually these tears feel really good.” I felt the release of a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying. I had never written about Marty. I have this conflict of feeling like he has this whole other family and life that was only occasionally connected with mine, and that meant I didn’t have the right to write about him—that I am an outsider from his real family. But this release helped me embrace how much he was and still is a very real part of my family tree.
My girls know who Grandpa Marty is, even if he is another loved-and-lost grandfather whom they will never meet (except for the time he held Sophia when she was just three months old). I'm grateful that my husband got to know Marty first hand, and he will always be a part of the conversation when chatting with my mom and sister.
I had all these emotions bubble up, which felt like a release, and then I went numb. I couldn't focus, I felt stuck. I decided to share the poem on Substack and thought it was a good idea to publish it on Marty's birthday… 10 days later. In the in-between, I felt out of sorts, foggy, sometimes edgy. Not finding joy in my usual podcasts and audiobooks. Not able to pick a show or Christmas movie that felt right. Not able to focus on anything. Very indecisive with my small pockets of free time. Read? Write? Sketch? Watercolor? Walk? Bath? Crochet? TV? I kept cycling through the options waiting for that "click" when an activity fits the timing and headspace I'm in.
It had been days without a click. I was in a funk and attributing most of it to a lack of sunshine as I counted down the days until winter solstice. But I also came to realize that I felt a kind of limbo in this gap between stirring up these aged feelings of grief, deciding to share them—but not having shared them yet. It felt unfinished. I felt antsy.
I considered publishing the poem before his birthday to just rip off the bandage and let it breathe (and take these icky feelings with it). Many others are thinking of Marty in the days leading up to his birthday just like I am; people don't just think of lost loved ones on their birthday, I rationalized. But I still liked the idea of the piece being time stamped on his birthday for archival purposes, so I held off. That evening I opened Instagram and saw a friend's post about the loss of her dad and how grief can sneak up on you:
It struck me then that it isn't just about this particular piece of writing and the timing of sharing it with others. And it isn't just about Michigan winter mood (before winter even begins). Those are simply pieces of the much larger puzzle of Grief with a capital G.
There's no rushing Grief. It's time to sit with this for a minute and let it flow through me, let myself feel the discomfort of it all1. Like the Jewish ritual of sitting shiva, it was finally time to embrace this loss and reflect on it. I felt some relief in realizing these 10 days were here to serve me if I allowed them to guide me in the right direction. The time before and after Marty's death was full of intense life changes that hindered my ability to be present with this experience. So here I am, more than five years later, allowing myself the space and capacity to feel it.
A couple months ago I started attending Al-Anon and ACoA meetings for the first time in my life. I’m not sure why we never explored this support system growing up, but I am grateful that I finally found my way to it, fostering a new level of awareness, healing and growth. I’m not sure that I could have accessed these feelings and words about Marty without it.
Thank you so much for sharing this, Leslie! It reminds me a lot of when I grieve my dad and how I wish he were a part of what we now have.
Gorgeous, Leslie. I really enjoyed the photos as well.