- Do not stand at my grave and weep;
- I am not there. I do not sleep.
- I am a thousand winds that blow.
- I am the diamond glints on snow.
- I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
- I am the gentle autumn rain.
- When you awaken in the morning’s hush
- I am the swift uplifting rush
- Of quiet birds in circled flight.
- I am the soft stars that shine at night.
- Do not stand at my grave and cry;
- I am not there. I did not die.
–Mary Elizabeth Frye
It’s still not easy.
I want to pick up the phone and hear your voice.
I want to tell you how the girls love it when, after their bath, I stand them, wrapped in a robe, atop the toilet seat and dry them off, just as you did for me at that age.
I want to send you their drawings, and have you hear their adventures.
I want you to call them “doll”, and promise to send them fudge.
I want to see their faces light up when they get a “Just Because Card” in the mail from you and see two or three dollars flutter to the ground when they open it.
I want to hear you tell Mom and Dad to “be loving.”
I want to say, “Broken-down,” when you ask me how my broken-down brother is.
I want to sit on your couch, nursing the smallest can of ginger-ale I’ve never seen anywhere else but in your house, and have you tell me to look away when the daytime soap stars start doing the “hanky-panky”.
I want to make more memories with you.
So, I choose to share my memories of you with others. And I celebrate your sunrise, instead of your sunset. I love you so.
Happy Birthday, Gram.