Reflection, Contemplation, Hope - Page 1
A Pretty Song
From the complications of loving you
I think there is no end or return.
No answer, no coming out of it.
Which is the only way to love, isn’t it?
This isn’t a playground, this is
earth, our heaven, for a while.
Therefore I have given precedence
to all of my sudden, sullen dark moods
that hold you in the center of my world.
And I say to my body; grow thinner still.
And I say to my fingers, type me a pretty song.
And I say to my heart: rave on.
-Mary Oliver
Sometimes love lasts a moment
Sometimes love lasts a lifetime
Sometimes a moment is a lifetime.
- Author Unknown
“ I loved the boy with the utmost love of which my soul is capable;
and he is taken from me—yet in the agony of my spirit in surrendering
such a treasure I feel a thousand times richer than if I had never
possessed it.”
- William Wordsworth
A “Still” Father
By Richard Olsen in loving memory of his daughter Camille
Reprinted from M.i.s.s.i.n.g Angels newsletter, September/October,
2006
My child is gone
I hardly remember
Her coming
A moment in time
That was both
The longest
And shortest
Of my life.
Anticipation
Devastation
And now
Reclamation.
Putting the pieces
Of my soul
In semblance
Of order.
Time to go on
Time to get on
With life
With love
With a hole
In my heart
But with joy
For that moment.
I am Camille’s father
A blessed gift
Through whom I have learned
I can love deeply
That which I cannot hold
Except in my heart
Knowing I am forever her father.
Heavy
From Thirst: Poems by Mary Oliver
That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had His hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among the lions),
“
It’s not the weight you carry
but how you carry it---
books, bricks, grief—
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled—
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
A New Baby
By Debbie Love
Reprinted from Heartbeats: A Collection of Poems compiled by the Center for Loss
in Multiple Birth (CLIMB), Inc.
A new baby, how wonderful
everyone does say, but if they could feel
the pain that came before this day.
To have your children die at such
an early stage, makes you wonder
if this day will end in the same way.
You have been down roads that
no parent should ever have to go.
and now you bring a new life into this world
hoping tragedy comes your way no more.
This baby means so much to you, but
it will never take away the pain
or make you forget. It lets others
go on with life and think it was
all for the best.
Oh how you miss your children
that have died before this day,
but remember them in your heart and
they will never go away.
A Mother
By Beth Ellithorpe
Reprinted from Heartbeats: A Collection of Poems compiled by the Center for Loss
in Multiple Birth (CLIMB), Inc.
Am I?
Was I?
When people ask,
“
Do you have any kids?”
Did I?
Do I explain this horrible tragedy?
I was a mother for 20 minutes.
Was I?
I gave birth to babies,
Does that make me a mother?
Or do I simply know in my heart
that I had babies and I am a Mom
to my twins?
They know.
I know.
