(no subject)

[hsifeng]

This past Saturday afternoon, family, friends and former students gathered to wish my Father bon voyage. We drank, ate and scattered his ashes from this highest point of the ranch that we call home. While we sat in my parent’s living room my Mother handed me a letter that she had found that morning, a final message that my Father had tucked away in a corner of their bathroom in the week before he passed.

My parents are stubborn people and fought often. As a result of the regular head-butting they did, there have been times I forgot how much they love each other. I think they forgot sometimes themselves.

And then this note, this love letter, this letter of thanks. All the things my Father couldn’t say in his last months of living and perhaps for years before that as well.

Rediscovering that your parents love each other; deeply, wholeheartedly and through trials unimaginable, is an amazing gift.

In the process of finding this week’s Wednesday poem, I stumbled across this. Reading it, I hear my Father’s voice in so many ways. It felt strange and wonderful and right. So I am sharing it with you.

 

waiting for death
like a cat
that will jump on the
bed

I am so very sorry for
my wife

she will see this
stiff
white
body
shake it once, then
maybe
again

"Hank!"

Hank won't
answer.

it's not my death that
worries me, it's my wife
left with this
pile of
nothing.

I want to
let her know
though
that all the nights
sleeping
beside her

even the useless
arguments
were things
ever splendid

and the hard
words
I ever feared to
say
can now be
said:

I love
you.

Confession ~ Charles Bukowski

 

Comments

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

*hugging you*

I am sorry for your loss too honey. These passings leave holes in our daily life, both big and small and sometimes totally unexpected.

I am so grateful that my Father wrote this; I think he somehow knew that the creeping illness he has suffered would be followed by a sudden ending. Papa was nothing if not vigilant about being prepared for all possibilities. *chuckle*

It was the perfect coda for the memorial of his passing; like he was there with my Mom, whispering how much he cared for her.

Both the letter and the poem made me smile; I take that as my hearts acknowledgement of a life that was (if sometimes rough) well lived and full of love.

[jillwheezul.livejournal.com]

**sniff**

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

*shares a cup of tea, a tissue and a hug*

[evil-fionn.livejournal.com]

A love like that... That's something to build a life around.
:-)
Hugs.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Yep!

:)

[sstormwatch.livejournal.com]

That is beautiful and so very right.

I am sorry for your loss, hun. It is a hole never to be filled when a parent is taken from us.

{{{Hugs}}}

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Thank you honey... *HUGS BACK*

[love3angle.livejournal.com]

what a poem. I am mooed. And I am very sorry for your loss, my friend.

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Thank you honey, I appreciate your sympathy. *smiles*

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

Thank you sweetie, it is greatly appreciated.

[docryder.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[hsifeng.livejournal.com]

*hugs back at you*