Grandma and Grandpa T
In trying to come up with things to write about I started looking through old stuff and wanted to post this poem-whatever-thing I wrote when my Great-Grandpa T died, not long after Great-Grandma T. It's weird to read old stuff cause some of it makes me want to throw up a little but some of it I like. I like the beginning of this but not so much the middle and end, but here it is for posterity and so maybe someday I revise it a bit.
Eight months later, the pallbearers are the same,
though this time they carry their burden over frozen ground.
With sudden formality in the set of their shoulders, these
men I see every day become a little foreign,
the tangible weight of family responsibility between them.
I've never seen my brothers looking so much like men.
He said, "You have to make sure she goes into the tomb feet first,
so that when I go our heads are side-by-side.
We need to be able to talk to each other."
I can tell when I look at his hands, though,
that it doesn't really matter.
This is not him anymore.
Not long before all this, she told me a story about
the day they first met.
Leaving red lipstick on the top of his bald head,
she described the baseball game, the girl sitting on a bumper,
as he looked up at her and grinned,
and she told me the best thing they could ask for was more time together.
I can't help but wonder now if the 68 years she spent in love with one man
made her understand better or worse the nature of that emotion.
I wonder if she knew what I know of it,
if she'd ever felt she'd compromised who she was to put a smile on his face.
If she'd ever imagined herself on the moon only to find
she was there alone.
If she'd ever seen love as something that was slowly tearing her down,
not saving her.
And then I roll my eyes a little at my melodrama and think,
of course she did.
I'm not special.
I'm young, and naive, it's the nature of the thing,
and I can't even begin to understand what it's like to keep going,
through children, wars, loss, change, doctors, test results, cancer,
holding someone's hand knowing you're going to lose him,
if not now, then tomorrow.
But I wonder if I'll ever get to know what you knew of it.
When my brothers come back, the unfamiliar cast of
adulthood will almost completely back away, for now,
and we'll go on like we have been.
(How many times did you go on like you had been?)
We'll leave him there with you behind marble walls
He's been there for all intents and purposes since May, anyway.
And that will be that.
That will be that.
I forget sometimes that my life is just starting,
that all of this, all of this, will matter less and less as time goes by,
and that's the way it should be.
But I wish that I could tell you about it.
I always imagined you heard what I meant behind the words.
Eight months later, the pallbearers are the same,
though this time they carry their burden over frozen ground.
With sudden formality in the set of their shoulders, these
men I see every day become a little foreign,
the tangible weight of family responsibility between them.
I've never seen my brothers looking so much like men.
He said, "You have to make sure she goes into the tomb feet first,
so that when I go our heads are side-by-side.
We need to be able to talk to each other."
I can tell when I look at his hands, though,
that it doesn't really matter.
This is not him anymore.
Not long before all this, she told me a story about
the day they first met.
Leaving red lipstick on the top of his bald head,
she described the baseball game, the girl sitting on a bumper,
as he looked up at her and grinned,
and she told me the best thing they could ask for was more time together.
I can't help but wonder now if the 68 years she spent in love with one man
made her understand better or worse the nature of that emotion.
I wonder if she knew what I know of it,
if she'd ever felt she'd compromised who she was to put a smile on his face.
If she'd ever imagined herself on the moon only to find
she was there alone.
If she'd ever seen love as something that was slowly tearing her down,
not saving her.
And then I roll my eyes a little at my melodrama and think,
of course she did.
I'm not special.
I'm young, and naive, it's the nature of the thing,
and I can't even begin to understand what it's like to keep going,
through children, wars, loss, change, doctors, test results, cancer,
holding someone's hand knowing you're going to lose him,
if not now, then tomorrow.
But I wonder if I'll ever get to know what you knew of it.
When my brothers come back, the unfamiliar cast of
adulthood will almost completely back away, for now,
and we'll go on like we have been.
(How many times did you go on like you had been?)
We'll leave him there with you behind marble walls
He's been there for all intents and purposes since May, anyway.
And that will be that.
That will be that.
I forget sometimes that my life is just starting,
that all of this, all of this, will matter less and less as time goes by,
and that's the way it should be.
But I wish that I could tell you about it.
I always imagined you heard what I meant behind the words.