Posts tagged ‘Death’

April 28, 2011

For Aunt Kathryn

by jhon baker

As was proposed yesterday: here is the second part that I am going to read at my Aunt Kathryn’s memorial service on Saturday, which we will be leaving for in the morning at approx. 4am.

There needs to be a way that I can step out of my door and straight up to yours, bend space and time, bend light and dark, dematerialize and reconstruct in an instant – there ought to be a way, not eventually, not in the next life but now. It would please me immensely to sit for a cup of coffee or tea with you right now, have a scone or doughnut and laugh at quaint jokes and remark upon the headlines of the local paper. We need this ability more than we need another war, another fastest plane, another super computer or another convening of the Senate.

I lift this coffee mug to you, be well.

with love,

There has been some push back for my want to read this and the poem (read yesterdays blog for poem) selected partially for the reason as it was the last poem of mine she had ever read and this paragraph is the last thing from me she had ever read – both are important to the relationship that we shared and her immediate family who have given their blessing.

I cannot comment too much on the push back but to say – what the hell is wrong with someone when they believe they can dictate the manner in which we grieve? When they can pretend to know what is best in these moments for others. We each grieve on our own, in an individual way; our personal memorials are largely dictated by what we ourselves actually require to heal. What we ourselves need to learn to brave the day without the person we loved so fully.
@font-face { font-family: “Times”;}@font-face { font-family: “MS 明朝”;}@font-face { font-family: “MS 明朝”;}@font-face { font-family: “Cambria”;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }p { margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; font-size: 10pt; font-family: Times; }.MsoChpDefault { font-family: Cambria; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }

April 20, 2011

For Aunt Kathryn

by jhon baker

My heart is broken.

the post office doesn’t deliver to heaven.

and you’ve crossed the bridge

and are going home

——–

this is my star.
          bewildered,
     hanging down
     our heads
this is my star.

this is my star,
          vainly wishing and
     wishing on planets
     and suns
this is my star.

on bended knees
with clenching fists
praying or raging at your
Christian God

this is my star,
         to wonder and
     wonder and
     wonder,
this is my star.

 – Hoc Scripsi

August 9, 2010

death in the morning

by jhon baker

I should really get back to the business of blogging now.
My father-in-law and friend, Bob, died this morning. We have long known this day would come and the suddenness was unexpected all the same. Tomorrow would be his 63rd birthday. Happy birthday Bob. a short and simple obit.

for Bob, death in the morning

you are beyond the grave and soon will be ashes
how short this life!
how this pain has ended!
I am not sorry for us, for
we had known you,
I am not sorry for death
as it is mercy;
I am not sorry for you
as you were magnanimous
and not even death can
remove this magnanimity.

 – Hoc Scripsi

Tags:
August 3, 2010

Monday and Tuesday

by jhon baker

the second and third – 2&3 – 23, isn’t there something significant about that?

my father-in-law is dying and I am losing a good friend, a man I deeply admired.
I’ve switched to autopilot and my wife has had to be the stronger of us.
I don’t grieve well and I do so silently, she headlongs into projects and gets everything done. my wife, my constant hero and I do what I can for her.
Eventually the words will come and for now I cannot convey the depth of my sadness. his wife, his daughter are in mourning’s bondage and we are all walking with him to the end of his many years of struggle.
We go to hospice tomorrow – it is an unfortunate 2 hours away in a veterans home – he has lived there for the past 6.5 years.

It has taken me a long time to write this much. it is hard to lose such a good man.

I grieve

I grieve slowly,
quietly.

occupying the hours of
a day with meditations

of death and the dead.
often I consider my own death

and am not unnerved by it as
death is one end only.

it is ever the patient student
of the dead that practices life

so fully
as to die with ease.

 – Hoc Scripsi

Tags: