A Poem for Mom

I lost my mom in the beginning of December, and my mind is still trying to come to terms with the fact that she's not going to be around any more. I miss her random texts, her hugs, her little nuggets of wisdom that she was always quick to share. One of those nuggets of wisdom was when I was fifteen and heartbroken over a breakup. "Write about it," Mom said. Thirty years later, heartbroken over losing my mama, I tried to write about it, and I began with the first few lines of the poem below. But there was just so much--too much--to condense into a poem. Then my brother asked me to speak at Mom's funeral. I thought, what better way to honor my mom than to finish the poem and read it aloud to those who knew and loved her? So I did, with a little help from my daughters when it got too hard. This is A Poem for Mom, written primarily to my six siblings.

A Poem for Mom

What can we say

about losing our mother?

We are not unique in our

grieving,

in our loss.

And yet

we are.

Countless before us have lost their mothers.

But no one has ever lost

OUR mother.

Our mother,

this big-hearted, song-filled woman

whose voice was the sound of poetry

and praise,

of soft-spoken words of encouragement.

Of scoldings,

of sobs.

And laughter too.

The kind that sometimes disguised itself 

as crying.

There was no denying

for her

how she felt

at any given moment.
It was always as clear

as her bright blue eyes,

as evident

as the laugh lines

on her cheeks.

Mother was not one

for subtlety. 

And yet,

she left quietly

with all of us wondering

how she felt

what she was thinking

 

our own hearts

sinking

as she left us behind

to enter her heavenly home,

arms raised,

blue eyes shining with happy tears

and on her lips

a joyful

boisterous

song.