My Jewish mother-in-law called them
God Forbids. For her, a lot of them.
For her, only one really mattered.
Cancer struck the man at 35,
wife and two young daughters bereft.
A Buddhist, environmentalist, admired doctor.
I have been at memorials of lesser men.
The gathering held in a Quaker House,
filled with aging intellectuals,
who bowed their heads because silence
becomes the easiest way to avoid a god
who bittered them. For them, this man's
immortality lives in soil and air and trees.
Stories and memories shared,
a beautiful letter from one sister
while other siblings did not speak.
Silly anecdotes briefly undercut the gloom,
fall from a tree, a mountain bike crash,
unhurt in both, his teen mania to sell
special cutlery to all his parents’ friends.
Many who still had them chortled.
Both daughters spoke, the eleven-year-old
who fell in love with the mic, laughed/sobbed
stories you could barely hear.
Just like anyone who projects
their own service at funerals,
every parent in the room fought
the deepest shadow of their fears.
The thought struck me—could I do this?
Watch a memory video of my own child?
Of course, I would attend,
but like Cordelia rigid
facing her stern father,
I could not shove
my heart into my mouth.
Originally published in Wishbone Words