{A tribute that I thought I’d lost.}
We talked about you for weeks
in a hushed and jumbled mix
of past and present tense,
and I wished for you to speak up –
for you to tell us you weren’t deaf
and
you weren’t dead.
Instead,
you were shut up inside yourself
in a way that I have never known you,
but I am realizing day by day
all the ways
that I have never really known you.
They gave me a pamphlet called
“Gone From My Sight”,
a matter-of-fact black-and-white
breakdown
of each day that you had left.
We passed it around,
made jokes about the order form in the back,
and laughed to keep from crying.
I used it as a bookmark,
not as guidance –
your life simply couldn’t be reduced to
a solemn list of
all the ways your body betrayed
you in that bed.
Watching you slip away
has left me
with an overwhelming sense of
being homesick all of the time.
I hear your voice inside my head,
and I know that once it fades,
the silence will never seem so loud.
But for now,
this will have to be enough –
celebrating your life
with the people who knew you best,
and loving you as fiercely
as you loved all of us,
and I can’t remember if I told you, so
thank you for helping me grow up.
-L.R.Y.
(8/29/14)