October 23, 2017 – This week will be an eternity for me.

        As many of you know already, my Mom died last Thursday night and I have been coordinating a funeral from North Carolina that will take place in my hometown in Massachusetts.   I am down to only a few details and they might just wait until I get to Massachusetts tomorrow afternoon.

        Going through all the slips of paper and poems that Mom has sent to me over the years marked “keep for my funeral” – I found another poem by Grace E. Easley.  I am not sure where Mom clipped this poem from either, but it is faded and yellowed with age and I know the reason she sent it to me was to make certain I was not one of the folks with the narrow view of life making everyone including themselves miserable as described in the poem.

        I do remember at the time I was having trouble finding a job and I was turning into a curmudgeon in my telephone calls and letters and that wasn’t “her girl” or “my girl” as she called me affectionately.

        When Dad died in 2010, it created a sadness that has never fully lifted.  Christmas is no longer the same – there is no longer the yearly “hunt” for the newest aftershave that smelled like apple pie or pine tree forests to replenish his stock.  It took me three years before I could even look in the aftershave aisle without tearing up. What hurdles will now show up with Mom’s death? I am bracing myself for them as I know there will be many.

        The last several days I haven’t slept well and now the sadness of my Mom’s death is weighing on me.  I curled up in my husband’s arms last night and said,

        “There is really no one else now but you who really, really loves me.  With Dad and Mom both dead now, there is only your unconditional love.”

        He, of course, didn’t have the right words at that moment and later suggested I get pain killers or mind altering drugs to get through the funeral without having a heart attack.  Not what I wanted to hear, but he did understand my angst and conveyed his concerns as best he could. He is just not a wordsmith on demand.  

The love of my Dad and my Mom ran incredibly deep.  I never doubted their unshakable love all my life and now the fog of sadness is settling over me again and I am trying to be brave and put it into perspective that it, too, will lift eventually.  But, it never really lifted since Dad died.  I feel it has dimmed my soul.  Joy does not come easily now, I have to force it.  That shouldn’t be the way.

And, now . . . with Mom dying, I feel like the flame of my soul is flickering and sputtering.  And, as part of my makeup I am always competing with the whole world somehow.  My parents gave me that competitive spirit.  I always did things to obtain their praise and pride. I ask myself:

Who will I try to impress now?

Who will be proud of me now?

        Maybe my Mom knew I would need the following poem to snap me out of this, so I will re-read it often to give me solace.  I now share it with you.

Rainbows

By Grace E. Ensley

Some folks I know have narrow views of life that close them in.

And they continually await misfortune to begin.

They never see the sunshine, but they always find the rain.

They’ve frowned so much they can’t recall how laughter sounds again.

Instead of seeing each new day a bright and shining thing,

They face the dawn and wonder what new sorrow it will bring.

They squeeze out every ounce of joy, within the hearts of those

Who seek to cheer their lonely lives, Why? Only heaven knows.

They put a price on everything, and say that “nothing’s free”,

And end up being miserable as anyone can be.

They haven’t learned the secret that life is more than just

Accumulating lots of things, that fall apart with rust.

For life is more than gathering what someday we must leave,

Each one of us needs principles in which we can believe.

It’s not so much the getting, if we don’t know how to share.

For only love can turn the rain . . . To rainbows, everywhere.