All Saint’s and All Soul’s days were celebrated a couple of weeks ago. (I forget the difference between the two and just know that it is a time to honor the dead.) But how to engage with the memory of those who have passed and were painful or difficult in living relations? And can this help with those who are still with us? It seems to me—just conjecture and quite possibly not the truth—that the healing is in allowing the other, and also oneself, to break out of now-antique roles in order to help. A eulogy written for my father:
How Does One Say Good-Bye?
For PLB
How does one say good-bye?
This leave-taking,
it doesn’t happen all at once.
Tangled emotions,
like Christmas tree lights stashed
hurriedly away,
are discovered in a hideaway
corner of the heart,
long ago forgot.
Bit by bit,
hesitating step
by hesitating step,
knot
by maddening knot,
the farewell
ripens into the greeting
of a kinship
unlike the one
once bound by eyebrows, skin, and teeth.
How does one say good-bye?
By being heartbroken enough to say hello.
Sophia Brothers Peterman © 2011