Losing Parents

 

Sometimes when I can’t find the words for someones loss
I send leaves, flowers and hearts
a poetry of stickers
for them to interpret how they wish

If I know them well I might
share a special memory of the person
lost and how that will always be
like gold.

But when stickers, and flowers, and
everything just don’t seem to fit
I scroll past silently and think of them
and write this to send.

 

For anyone of my friends and readers who has lost a parent

 

To all my friends losing parents this week
I don’t know your parents except
through anything you do that is inspired by them,
and anything you build in their legacy,

Or anything you do opposite to them (because you need to),
but you still loved them because
they made you see yourself clearly.

To all the friends losing parents
in the last few years,
who still feel that loss, maybe you
hear their wisdoms, jokes, and
see again funny things at
the oddest moments.

Perhaps you look forward to
seeing them again one day and
catching up.

Or maybe they are reincarnated
in someone else you know
in some way
in the shape of face
or character
or some other way

Celebrating all the positives in our parents,
living and present, gone but still present, and
future parents too,
about to join this fold.

All who have this blessing,
could well ask,
what will our children write of us?

(c) June Perkins

 

(I will keep reflecting on this theme and go searching for a poem or story that might express
it more eloquently)