Legacy

This is a compilation of some of the poetry I have written while grieving for my sister who passed away suddenly last August. She was only 21.
Please feel free to recommend this link to others who may be going through a similar situation if you think it will help them with their pain.
Thanks-
Rain


22 years old today
Had you not died.
My face would have less worry lines
For all the tears I've cried.
My husband would have the sister
He deserved that slipped away.
You would have been married now...
Saturday would have been your wedding day.
The boys would have brought your rings to you.
The baby would have laughed through it all.
And tried to crawl to the wedding cake
As you stood so proud and tall.
But none of that was meant to be.
Little sister, little one.
And we placed flowers on that stone.
And I showed them to my sons.
Mom placed blooms of yellow and white
For our brother, dad and you.
Somehow things will never again be right.
Now everyday is somehow untrue.
So I'm writing this to tell you happy birthday.
I'm writing this because you are not here.

I'm writing this because today is empty.
And the only thing that fills it now is tears.

************************************************
Time suspended that day
Reality ended its true ways
Sanity bended, hope frayed.
Life went undefended that day.
Time seems fractured permanently.
Separated into two eventualities.
In one you are here.
In the other you are not.
As this world moves on
The other will be forgotten.
In my mind you will always be young.
Your sweetest song forever unsung.
You slip by me day after day...
I find myself falling after your memory.
Always.
Weeping,
My fingers grasp at time that will not spend,
Life lives without you...
Speeding on toward its end.
--------------------------------------------------
Forgetting

Out of the blue he asks me
Do you remember the time?
That Harmony taught me how to swim?
The time that Harmony took me to her "place"
(That is what he called her summer camp.)
Do you remember that time that I
Rode on a school bus with
Harmony
Aunt Harmony has that movie
at her house.
Can we go to that one place and see Harmony's body again?
Mom, we NEED to put the bones back in Aunt Harmony, and then we should
Put her spirit back in... and then ALWAYS,
Sorrowfully:
I know Harmony is dead mom,
I know.
And yesterday.
Mom remember the time...
What was that one name?
What was her name mom?
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Holding You

(To my baby sister Harmony-taken August 7, 2001)

I talk to you inside my head
I hear your voice laughing at me.
Making your smart remarks
Being who you used to be.
I wear your clothes around
Wanting you to see.
Feel the touch of Nathan's miniature arms
As he holds tight to me.
Wanting you to live through me.
Feel the softness of Gabe's hair...
The breath of baby Sammy,
Whom you've never seen
Floating across your shirtsleeve.
It is all that I can do,
And I know it is not enough.
You should be HERE to feel this touch,
And I hold myself in this
Lonely, hollow room.
And hope somehow I am holding you.
--------------------------------------------------

I cry alone
At night
Posting weary poems online
The wretched tears
Spilling onto my
Keyboard.
The world is
Asleep.
But not my grief.
You were the one who
Always understood.
You were the one that I
Always loved best.
Now...
Now...
I don't know how to go on
From here.
So
I cry alone
At night.
--------------------------------------------------

There are many words inside of me
Purple -black and angry
They spill out glossy at night
From this mind to these fingertips
To the anonymous alphabet fight.
And I know that its getting old
older and older to some
who want me to be done
But when you have half of you
Burned away it means many words will
Be needed to take up that space.
I am building myself up one letter at a time
Whether or not you read the rhyme.
And this epileptic grief shakes me hard
And my tongue is in my teeth.
And I'm not there yet.
But I'm getting there.
--------------------------------------------------

old people are supposed to die
they do it all the time
paper thin blue tinged skin
they are soooo at the end of the line
i had an interview at a "Home" once
Terrified me RAN to leave
Afraid of DEATH just waiting around
Smoking his cigarettes watching for
Margret to shit her bed one
Last time then he would
Turn his wrist, the cig out, flick it
To the ground and
Collect her. She was READY to go
Whether she knew it or not.
And I looked at YOUR face in that
Beautiful coffin, Thinking
That's not right how they had to
Fix an eyebrow out of your hair because
That Truck slammed so hard into your
Face.
That your head caved in.
And I am talking about you.
21
Was Death waiting there on the side of the road?
Puffing on that togey?
Just chilling out, enjoying the day while you
Swerved, tread gone
Into the astonished man who
Stole your eyebrow?
Old people are supposed to die.
Not you.
Not you...
--------------------------------------------------

Rains Within stands alone
Tiny heart is cold as stone
She was once a gemini
Her twin now dances in the sky
Rains Within on sacred ground
Bends to touch what she has found
She looks ahead and sees the night
Moon turns away , denying sight
Rains Within knows what is done
When inside the Rain there is no sun
She pulls the awl across her skin
Erasing what is cold within
Drawing the pain with flesh and blood
Doing what she knows she should
The scars beat with her heart.
Gemini twins. torn apart
The blood will dry
Her soul will fly
To mend her heart must break
And her healing flesh will make
A broken scar of sorrow
She will live to see tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------

You were the dawn that split the night.
The chorused voice rejoicing after a hard fight.
You were the wail that Harmonized with my pain...
Parellel tears we cried again and again.
You were the shadow thrown upon the wall of my soul.
Within the pride of your heart I was always whole.
Your eyes looking up to made me strong
You loved me even when you knew I was wrong.
No one will ever be all that you were to me.
In my darkest night your laughing face is all I see.
--------------------------------------------------

In a place you have never been.
With a child you have never seen.
He is growing strong in this world
That I find alien and strange.
Everything has changed.
But this is reality now.
And I must be here somehow.
And live for him to show him who you were.
And I must put aside my anger and disbelief.
And simply grieve.
--------------------------------------------------

How does he wave his chubby fists
Without you here before him?
How does he smile and coo
Without you here to see him?
How does he grow so quickly,
So sure and strong...as the others did.
Without you here to hold him,
Smell him...
Sing to him,
Laugh at him?
It seems so cruel to me that life goes on
Without you.
As if we don't need you here to
Draw breath.
How Mom must have cried
Everyday after dad died.
To see us growing up without him there.
Not frozen in time as we should have been.
I would still be nine years old as I was then.
You would be four.
It seems so cruel that
I will be a grandmother someday.
And you never had the chance to carry your own child.
Serene Audrey...
I miss you and that is all the legacy that I have.
I cannot even pass that on to the baby
Who has never known you.
--------------------------------------------------

Dancing through the blossoms fallen from the crabapple tree
With second hand shoes from the church across town
I'm spinning around and you laugh with me
With our pockets full of nothing we all fall down

In the room we shared for a year or two
The words sometimes flashed like lightning
But we could always sneak out the window at nignt
We we finally got tired of fighting...

And I would drive you around in my blue cavalier
And look into the future we tried to lay before us
Talk about the crabapple tree we left behind on Crawford drive
And our voices would sing that sweet chorus

I hear the drizzle of the rain, like a memory it falls
Soft and warm, continuing, tapping on my roof and walls...
And as i watch the drops of rain weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain, there but for the grace of you go i.

It seems and instant now to me when I recall
We both went from girls to women grown
You raised yourself more than we other three
I know that too often we left you all alone...

But years swept by like the branches we'd left behind
And time stretched ahead of us in an endless song
You were my north , my south my east and my west....
I thought you would last forever and I was wrong...

We live in a world where we are often confused
So many times I would call you to begin my day
You were my sunshine, my only sunshine
You made me happy when skies were gray...

I hear the rustle of the crabapple blossoms in my dreams...
Last night I dreamed you had not died...
When I awoke dear I was mistaken,
And I hung my head and I cried.
1-11-02
--------------------------------------------------

Gramma Glenna had a sister
Charlene
She died years before I knew this family.
Glenna spoke of her often.
She was the shadow
Thrown from Glenna's heart
Into a world she had not survived.
I never knew her,
But she became real to me
Through Glenna's eyes.
Now Glenna is gone.
I did not know Glenna enough.
Granpa David is gone.
I did not know David enough either.
What type of shadow will I caste of them?
What kind of echo will my words create?
And Harmony...
Sweet Harmony.
You will be my Charlene.
And my boys will say:
Mom had a little sister once.
Once.
Can 21 years be so easily condensed?
Yes.
Memories can be counted,
Broken down.
They are finite.
Gramma Glenna had a sister.
I had a sister.
She is now a shadow
Thrown from my heart,
Pressed on by the light of my soul...
--------------------------------------------------

Remember
She would say to me if she were here.
Remember me to them
Let them know no tears.
Show them who I was.
Show them who they can be.
Remember me to them so they may see.
Once upon a time I held them here.
Close inside my soul so they would know.
How much their little smiles where my sunshine
When I felt that life was making me too old.
Remember me to them, they were my babies.
I loved them as if they were my very own.
Remember me to them, please don't grow weary...
For some day we will Remember here.
At Home.
--------------------------------------------------

If all my life were words,
And A million were all I could write
I know what they would echo
From this dark and lonely night.
Half would say I love you.
Over and over again.
The other half would read
I miss you.
And no more words would leave the pen.
--------------------------------------------------

Stout little boy
Look how you've grown
With her silver hand upon your brow.
You light our eyes with your uni-toothed smile.
Sending slivers of heaven to cut our hearts.
I see her in your brother.
Dark, elfin child.
Pixie chin, dimples from another world.
And I know she watches.
Comes to the middle one in dreams.
He takes her a flower.
A little boy not yet three,
Giving away his heart to an angel.
Do they remember?
Will they remember?
Did you meet her there before you came to us?
Was she shimmering in that place?
Was she laughing, pushing you down,
Into our arms?
I think you know her...
Maybe more than I did.
--------------------------------------------------

He is turning into you.
Attitude.
Dark hair and ebony eyes.
It should be no surprise.
You stole him from me when he was young.
Made the bond between you so strong.
He has none of your flesh or blood,
But, oh if he could....
He would be no more like you than now.
I often wonder how,
You have done this
And you are gone.
Through him you carry on.
--------------------------------------------------

Pictures of you
Are everywhere.
Burning my mind with your gaze.
I want to fall into those photos
And relive
Every one of those days.
How could I have let you go?
How is it
That you are no longer here?
You were my heart
And my everything.
Losing you
Was my greatest fear.
They say you live on
In Memory.
But that's just a
Simple lie.
I don't want half recalled
Days of the past.
I want you to have your life.
--------------------------------------------------

Sharing with you
Was sweet.
I don't want my own birthday cake.
--------------------------------------------------

The God I Believe In
(To my baby sister Harmony-taken August 7, 2001)

The God I believe in
Called angels around her.
The God I believe in
Wrapped her in light.
I know in my soul
He sent someone to hold her
Or He held her Himself
As her soul took flight.

The God I believe in
Took all her discomfort,
Covered her pain
In a shimmering gold.
Wrapped silver wings
Around all her confusion...
And swiftly carried
My baby sister home.
***©
--------------------------------------------------
You Have Never Been

only eternity
you have been away
my twin
only friend i had
robbed ripped so senselessly
excuse my grief
explain the honor of my babies' name
for how would my sister matter if he will never meet you?
we give pitiful tribute
a legacy
my best gemini half
a little boy sleeps
confidant of us
time bears years that will never end
to three boys
you have never been.
***©
--------------------------------------------------
Wrong Number

I hear your voice
On my cell phone mailbox
only hours before you died
You had dialed us instead of Julie.
We did not check it for days,
Until you were a ghost-voice haunting us.
If I had answered the phone
That morning
Would you be here...
Within the reach of a phone call
To laugh about the
Time your tread came off and you
DID NOT swerve into oncoming traffic...
Because I told you to be careful
That morning when we talked.
That was my last chance to talk to you...
I didn't know.
I swear I didn't know.
******©
--------------------------------------------------

When did chance reach time?
You died.
You did.
Every time I try to call,
Any time I want to write.
All I can tell myself is this:
When did chance reach time?
You died.
You did.
Today was a perfect day.
I woke early to wake you too.
Thought we'd take the kids to play,
Just like we used to do...
But time took things upon itself
And chance met you instead...
And everytime I picked up the phone
I heard this voice inside my head.
When did chance reach time?
You died.
You did.
--------------------------------------------------
Few See My Grief

Few see my grief
They say I am strong
They think I don't cry
They are wrong
It fills me like thunder
Pushing out on my mind
Discharges like lighting...
And I'm hollow inside.
In the storm
In the tempest
In the flickering light
I live the fact that
You've left me...
Alone in this night.
And knowing this truth:
Until my life is through...
I will wake every morning
Without you.
--------------------------------------------------
In the morning I awaken
To 3 chubby bodies,
Trespassing on my
Shrinking bed.
Calling me mama.
Begging for cartoons and
Cereal and
MILK, CAN WE GO DOWNSTAIRS NOW??
Kisses,
Yucky toddler morning breath the sweet
Breath of life
Affirmation.
Another today, another yesterday...
Yesterday's tomorrow.
Life goes on.
And for them I quietly
Fold up, tuck in, and hide away
My sorrow.
--------------------------------------------------
a little boy you have never seen
sleeps in a crib only
a few feet away from me
you two are parallel lines that will never meet
how do i explain to him
the name he bears, the only thing that we could give
that would matter in the end
an honor, a tribute, a legacy...
a pitiful excuse for what you could have been to him
and my other babies, my boys
robbed of you as if you had never been
three years old, and two
how will i tell them of you?
my best friend
my confidant
my sister
the other half of that gemini twin
ripped from us so senselessly
if grief is time
this
is
eternity.
--------------------------------------------------
The golden sorrow put me begging again,
Rocking.
You fell away as the memory tore.
That was the heartbeat I couldn't fill.
Underneath your picture the dust moaned.
Long years drew near in shadows.
Memories with you scarcely worn,
Scarcely there, pulled away.
The roses were thorns of anguish,
Tight pain to me.
Your wedding dress,
Beautiful somewhere today
In a box, I'd remember
As the box lid fell.
And my hidden teardrops danced again.
***©
--------------------------------------------------
To Have Over

that last time.
she asked if i wanted the boys to sleep with her
as i made them a pallet on the floor beside the couch.
no. i said. they will be fine.
And they were asleep minutes later, exhausted by the long day.
we woke early.
my pregnant belly leading me off the couch to the bathroom.
as usual.
we sat around listening to straight outta compton
trying to remember all the words to a bitch is a bitch.
laughing.always laughing.
that last time.
she offered to drive, i declined.
what if?
what if it had happened that day?
what if i could have turned fate aside?
or would we all have died...
showed her the place we were thinking of moving to, asked if she wanted to get out and see
"I'll see it if you move there soon enough anyway."
no.
no you won't.
you will be dead.
dead.
you will be dead little sister.
little baby sister who i watched sleep from your earliest days.
my first baby, of all my babies.
i held you on my hip first.
before I had my own.
that last time.
we had lunch.
scorned the waitress who did not wait on us.
she got no tip.
and yet she lives.
strange.
my sons did not want you to go at the end of that day.
and i,
i did not get out of the car to give you a hug.
but gave you a pinkie hug instead.
remember?
only you and i would think that is funny in the face of death.
that last time.
there was only a pinkie hug.
i miss you.
every day.
every day.
every day.
i have to stop thinking about all the other days that i will miss you,
or i will die.
i only allow myself this one day.
that last time i saw you...
talked to you,
laughed with you.
that last time my sons held you.
i wish i had it back, not to do over,
just to have over.
***©
--------------------------------------------------
They say that lightning discharges the storm.
Thunder is truth.
The tempest pushing the night.
I cry
Without knowing this:
They live hollow inside
Like me.

--------------------------------------------------
I see you in my mind.
Strong.
I think grief will wake me.
Flickering light fills the morning.
I'm wrong.
And Alone.
--------------------------------------------------
Within the traffic of days
We talk about you
Ghost
Haunting us
I hear your voice.
You laugh.
If time was chance
We would swerve to reach you.
Instead I check my cellphone.
You DID call that morning.
I know that voice...
Only hours before
You died.
--------------------------------------------------

Those last few months, that last year
So many loose ends drawn near
Things we had all put off
Done.
All of us coming together as one
Things out of character that somehow were right
Making it easier to sleep at night...
And though she has left us we seem to be
Becoming a family in Harmony

--------------------------------------------------

To our little home on Crawford Drive you were brought that May
I'll never forget how we fought over your name that fine spring day
Jenny wanted Deborah, Gramma Dorothy wanted you named Anne
But when it all came right down to it Momma had the master plan

She said your middle name was to be Beth, I never asked her why
You know my middle name she just picked out of the sky...
But what she told us next would surprise the whole family.
Becuase life is always a song, she named you Harmony.

Your deep brown eyes and little grin charmed us through and through
And your beautiful soul simply blossomed as you grew
You became a young woman with the whole world at your feet...
You were my best friend and sister...my baby's Aunt Harmony.

You changed so many people and made them whole
Inside your human heart there was an angels' soul
But it seems there is no reason to some of life's rhyme
Sometimes we have a tempo that is out of time

Your life was higher and sweeter than the melody we heard
Your beautiful soul and laughing eyes could not be contained in words
And that humble day in August when the angels took you aside...
That sweet refrain became a whisper and disappeared when you died.

They said it was an instant
And you were gone
But that moment will last forever
In my life's song.
When your voice was silenced
My life's melody...
Became a hollow solo
Without my Harmony.
--------------------------------------------------
Someone Called Sister

Shimmering soul
Wrapped in someone called sister
Her home in the light took her.
The wings around her soul held her to God.
Believe
Believe
Believe in God.
He himself carried my baby around.
Swiftly
Covered her all in gold.
--------------------------------------------------
I close my eyes and I see your face
That laughing smile I can't erase
There is not one thing that I can do...
I don't want to remember you.

Once you were here with me
And life was good
We shared all the secrets
Like close sisters should
Now I turn your pictures over too
I don't want to remember you.

I think this world is cruel and sad.
How can one heart hurt so bad?
How can this lie be the truth?
I dont want to remember you.

Your face should not be a memory
I still want you here with me
I'm not finished being a sister to you...
I want to laugh like we used to do.
I want to hold you in my arms
I swear this time you will know no harm
I promise this time you will make it through
Because I dont want to remember you.
If I close my eyes I see your face...
It's a memory I can't erase.
It's a pain time wont undo...
Because I remember you.

--------------------------------------------------

Another year has begun
Without you here to hold my sons.
Another day has dawned...
And I still feel I have been wronged.
Another slap across my face...
Everytime my mind erases
That you are gone.
--------------------------------------------------


If love could echo
From this dark night
Would you leave words?
What lonely half would?
My pen and I write again.
Over and over I miss you.
No million words could say more.
The other half
Would know.
--------------------------------------------------

In that Place
Where our mind takes us
In the silky mists
On the path to sleep
There is a shadowy turn in the bend
Where the weeds are tall
And tangled.

If we wake still in this place
We pull it back with us,
Fog rolling into our
Bedrooms.
And nothing familiar there
Will remain.

The ceiling will be a lake of slated marble.
The walls...
A horizon of fire.
The clock on the table...
Tiny red sticks upon
A sacrificial pyre...
Glowing red from spirit heat.

Here is the place we go to dream.
Here is the place where
Reality is suspended indefinitely
And the world we create for ourselves
Endures for as long as it can,
Breathes until
We stop giving it breath.
Here is where we are afraid to be asked...
Or to ask others
"Who do you love?"
The answer may bleed.

I was There last night.
Holding this baby in my arms.
This baby that you have never laid eyes on,
Outside of my skin.
I was there as I held him,
Rocked him back to sleep
From a troubled rest.
And I felt you there.
Closer than skin.
As if you'd just left.
In a way you had...

And as I searched his face,
I knew.
That there, in that Place.

You are dead now too.

Finally.
Finally.

I cannot breathe you alive there
Anymore.


Reality.
If there is Reality.
Has Become.

And even in the place where I go to dream,
In the place where all hearts are bared,
The place where we grow our souls
Night after endless night.

You will no longer meet me there.

You swirl around me,
Becoming a memory there as well.

It is done.

You are gone.

_________________________________________________
On my way to the store
For milk and bread
Wanting someone to listen
As I clear my head...
There is one small gesture
My heart cant un-teach
Wanting to call you
I reach.

I reach for the cell phone
On the passenger side
Reach for your presence
A motion I can't hide
So obviously mistaken
My arm falls by my side
An old habit I've not lost
In the year since you died.

Its midnight and I'm tired
And my day has gone wrong
I want someone to listen
It won't take too long.
I only want an audience
All my woes to unleash...
Wanting to call you
I reach.

I reach for the cell phone
To call you again.
My brain and my heart
Are not talking and when
My hand touches the numbers
My heart tells my head
Why can't you remember?
She is dead.

And I know in my soul
That you will never be back
And it hits me like thunder
When my body reacts
As if you are somewhere waiting
For your cellphone to ring...
I bury you again
Every time that I reach.
__________________________________________
Opening my soul for this pain
I relive your legacy again and again.
Like a lance to my festering heart...
It rips me open and tears me apart.

The anger is never far from my lips
Its spills endlessly from my fingertips.
For I live in a life that continues on
When all that you were is gone.

I don't know if I can be you for anyone...
I don't know how to show your soul to my sons
I don't know if I can be both you and I.
But I know that I have to try.

Opening my soul for this pain...
I relive your legacy again and again...
Taking the next breath is all I can do.
When I know there is so much more that I owe you.