Rocket Ships

Some days I wish there was some place I could send grief
Like on a rocket ship sent up to space
With a note written inside
‘Please do not return’

I try to grow my imagination & creativity around grief,
but it shifts with every stroke of ink
We are still working on adding color to this melancholy tale

By age 6 my son knows that after death there are days Mom & Dad are not ok
By age 4 my daughter looks at me when I’m sick & asks
“Do you feel like you have cancer, Mommy?”

My children have already witnessed suffering & death before they’ll enter into first grade
I try to focus on how this will somehow “make them better”
Like a society obsessed with resiliency,
instead of the ache of the story it wants to bypass over
Let’s get to the good part, right?

But the 2 year old little girl inside me
who lost her Dad and Pop Pop before memories could even form of their love
That little girl hates this fate for them
She keeps sending rocket ships up to the sky
And they fall back down like fractured paper planes
Please
Go
Away.

The witnessing of suffering of the dying
And witnessing the suffering of the bereaved,
those of us who had the tall task of love to walk the dying to life’s edge
What a wonderful dream, to let it all go