“People come and go in your life but they never leave your dreams. Once they are in your subconscious, they are immortal.” – Patricia Hampl
I’m full of thought today. Memories have been swamping me, leaving me feeling a little breathless. I’m not sure what has triggered them all, but I know that these days in March always leave me a little sad. I lost people dear to me over a span of days in subsequent Marches some years ago, and the anniversary of those losses has never gone away. Does it ever? Can you ever get through an anniversary without thinking about it? I doubt it.
My dreams have also been filled with old, old friends, some of whom I haven’t seen in at least a decade. Why are they all stopping here now? Why are they so fully with me that I want to ring them up to make sure their voices sound the same? Echoes and memories and 17-year-old versions of us are giving me shivers up and down my back as I let them in. They are so close I can almost smell them.
Big stuff must be surfacing.
In 2006 I wrote a poem about a friend who we lost one March a lifetime ago. It has been one of the voices in my head so I need to put it here. I ask you again ~ do anniversaries ever get easier?
For M ~
When you died
we were twenty.
Two souls –
three days apart.
Salt and pepper
light and dark
girl and boy.
It doesn’t get easier –
It gets harder
because some days
I don’t think of you at all
and then when I do
I remember.
Where is the line?
The one that you crossed.
The one between
sadness and darkness?
Why couldn’t you see
the way back?
I miss you.
There is a hole inside of me
where you used to be
It is surrounded by questions
that you can’t answer.
You’ve missed a lot
you know.
I’ve danced alone at two weddings
and you’re an uncle now.
I’m an aunt, too.
Or do you know that already?
Please
come back.
Explain it all to me.
Two souls.
Three days apart.
One will be twenty forever
and one never will be again.
xoox
Oh my. Yes. Yes. Yes. I know.
For a few minutes or hours they visit us in our dreams and then we miss them desperately those following waking hours. I hope some day we will find a way to cross that line and be with them again.
Megg, Your poem is heart-tugging and so incredibly beautiful. The voice in my head lately has been the fear of loosing my parents. It’s inevitable… it’s going to happen, yet I do not want to see that day. Sigh.
Megg, the poem is beautiful. I lost my oldest son, Tim, 20 years, 5 months, and 20 days ago. Does one forget the anniversaries? No, of course not. The person who is gone will be forever in our heart. Does it get easier? Only sort of, in that you learn to live with the hole in your heart. Your poem is especially meaningful because it so accurately reflects my other children’s lives. Tim would have been an uncle now, four times over. I will be sending them a copy of your poem. But, just so you know, in spite of the pain I will always feel the joy and privelege of knowing my son and will forever remember the gift of his life. xoxo
Both your poem and Patricia Hampl’s quote are tugging at my heartstrings. Thank you for unearthing beauty out of grief.
I think a part of us never gets over some losses. It seems to live on in our heads, our hearts and the intensity of the original emotions can be called up. I find if I make myself move, physically, even if it’s just going to the fridge for another glass of tea, or dancing, it helps to “move” the feelings along. These tremendous losses are part of what makes us who we are, along with the joys and the wonders and the questioning, questing.