Friday, January 3, 2014

If I knew the way I would take you home.

The title of this post is a line from the song "Ripple" by The Grateful Dead.

I do not profess to be an aficionado of their music but they have a huge library of songs. Today a few lines from some of the songs I do know are especially poignant for me.

~~ Sleep in the stars, don't you cry, dry your eyes on the wind. All I know is something like a bird within her sang, All I know she sang a little while and then flew off. ~ "Bird Song"

~~ Standing on the moon, with nothing left to do, a lovely view of heaven, but I'd rather be with you. ~ "Standing on the Moon"

~~ Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there. ~ "Box of Rain"


In my past during times of sorrow or loss I have been called stoic. I have been called wooden. I have even been called unfeeling.

That is simply not true.

I may appear stoic but it's because I am trying to be strong for those around me.

I may appear wooden because if I let myself start to show any type of emotion I am afraid I won't be able to stop.

If I seem unfeeling because I joke it is partly because I choose to remember happy times with someone and partly because if I don't laugh I will cry.

Rest assured that when I am alone, I grieve. I weep. My chest burns with the pain of loss.

When the burn is at its most intense I sometimes need to let out the words that I keep bottled up. Things that I wanted to say, things that I never wanted to say, things that I should have said anyway.

These are some of those words:

Dorothy
Sister, though I didn't see you as much as I wished to,
And though there were reasons; some yours and some mine,
I thought of you often and suffered your absence
But never considered we would run out of time.
Perhaps that grand canyon, that great divide
Which split our pathways and had stolen our time,
Could have been bridged had we both started trying,
Me going your way and you coming mine.
We'll never know now how far we'd have gotten,
If only we had taken one step at a time.
But I can promise you this: you won't be forgotten,
I'll be always your sister and you'll always be mine.

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