 | What is this thing that builds our dreams yet slips away
from us
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever?
|
I started writing occasionally for The Grieving Room series in April 2007, a handful of days before my sister Sharon's death on April 27th. (Bear with me if you can - I've slipped in a final (truly!) tribute to my sis at the bottom of this post, along with a sappy but memorable video that features a song my sister loved.)
Dem in the Heart of Texas lost her mother a few short weeks before Sharon died. There are others who started the Grieving Room in April – Dem, if you are reading, help me out with the genesis of this series.
Who waits forever anyway?
We've had many, many comments and shared griefs and I sincerely hope that this series has helped folks in that journey through grief we all take on occasion. I thank you all for your thoughts and comments and the things and people you've shared with this community these past months.
Below is an incomplete gallery of individuals the DailyKos community has lost or grieved in 2007. I know that I've missed other members and loved ones; frankly, it became too hard to do the searches I should have done. (Please, please feel free to add additional folks in the comments and I will update the diary periodically when I can.)
Eulogy for My Wife (PapaChach's wife Lauren)
She taught me how to be a Democrat (TrueBlueMajority's mother)
Alicia.. My Baby (Zwoof's daughter)
John C. Mitchell (John's sister; Alicia's friend)
An open letter to DailyKos from Newdirection's wife (post by Randgrithr from NewDirection's wife, Liz)
Station wagon bids us farewell (smintheus' post on the passing of station wagon)
Rest in Peace jaysea
Jaysea's obituary
Andrew Ward Smith, 1938 - 2007. Rest in Peace, Dad (timroff's father)
RE: matt n nyc (matt-n-nyc family post)
My father just died (ktakki's father)
I lost my grandma this week (uniongal's grandma)
Steve Gilliard has died (rosebuddear on Steve Gilliard)
Cancer claims another (Dem in the Heart of Texas' mother)
Shivah, loss, and the obligations of grief (a recent Grieving Room diary by plf515 on her mother)
RIP, Sam (1988-2007) (Nulwee's friend)
Sharon, my final tribute
I watched as you passed by and thought I felt your breath for just a moment on my face, a gentle faerie vapor in the still air of the night. I brushed your hand in my dreams with my hand, an ethereal transfer of warmth from my flesh to spirit to your incorporeal flesh. That moment of space between life and death was filled, again, too briefly with transient comfort of your presence.
But touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
And we can have forever
And we can love forever
I take up the virtual brush again and prepare it for another stroke on the canvas I have painted of you in my heart. I add new layers around the face and about the shoulders – quick, before I forget. I draw the finer horsehair bristles touched in midnight black down around the line of the neck; I sponge the excess speckling of burnt sienna from the upper cheeks on right and left. Lightly I scrape the palette knife across the ridge of built-up ochre, smoothing the surface, making it rounder, less prominent. The ridges are hardening ...I've let the portrait age too long and time is taking over. I daub the edges of the margin around your jawline, purposefully fuzzing the facial impact of your characteristic stubborn chin. I remember when it seemed you approached life with your tongue perpetually stuck out at the world. I mute the darker red here, and increase the pale yellow there – the new layers serve to soften the image. My occasional dabbling is for naught. The face on the canvas is blurring and the colors are fading.
There's no chance for us
It's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us
But immortality is a memory hung in the gallery of the mind, preserved generation to generation if the doors are thrown open for those who might venture in. So I open the doors once more, this last day of 2007.
It's been eight months since my sister Sharon died – diagnosed with esophagial cancer at the end of March and dead by the end of April. Sharon would have been 69 on December 20 – there were nearly twenty years between us as siblings. For those who may be interested, here's a Monday night art walk of word portraits on my sister...
Forever is our today
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever?
Forever is our today
Sharon, I hope you are at rest now. Salve, atque vale.
A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
Peace, kossacks, and on to a better year for all of us.
Who waits forever anyway?
As always, here is a link to all the previous Grieving Room diaries.
"Who wants to live forever" - excerpted lyrics and music, Brian May, Queen
(also published in modified format at Docudharma)
