Note from the writer: I found this poem in my phone I wrote about a year ago while I was out and about. I'd forgotten about it until I was looking through my phone notes. I felt compelled to post it because it's a year later and as I've entered the anniversary of the beginning of the end (when Covid hit my mother's house). Since 2024 August 18th has always been bittersweet, it's my nephews birthday and also when everything started. I'd come to visit for his birthday and my mom told me before I left not to come out to her house, she was sick. The next few weeks unfolded in a mess of confusion, false hope, long hours in the hospital and finally the hardest loss I'd ever faced.
***
Sometimes I wonder how you're doing,
And it feels a little strange,
Sometimes I wonder what you're doing,
And again it feels the same.
I imagine you laughing,
Oh, how I miss that laugh and that smile,
Almost 2 years gone and I can hear your laugh,
If only through my bones,
Like motor memory,
For just a moment or two,
I close my eyes, and I soak,
In the bittersweet memory of you.
I wonder if you're sitting with Nanny,
Or laughing with Granny,
If you’re rolling your eyes at Uncle Calvin or rolling over laughing at something Aunt Gina said.
I wonder how you look,
Not the you that decays under your tombstone,
But you now,
Are you the version of you I remember growing up with? Active and strong?
Are you the young version I’ve only seen in pictures,
With the sheepish grin,
Breaking hearts?
Or can I even imagine?
I wonder if you’re watching,
Or if that's even allowed,
If the times I whisper, "Thanks, Papa"
When life gives me an unexpected break,
Actually, are you,
Or if you're not allowed to get involved,
Sometimes I wonder if you've made friends with my friends' grandparents and parents who have gone,
It makes me smile to think of you joking with them,
Hearing about the time we met and what they thought,
I wonder if you've met my ex's dad,
He was a great guy and he always seemed to love me.
I wish we could visit,
Share some whispers or notes,
Because I only get to wonder,
I do not get to know.