Losing my grandfather and father-in-law in the same year feels like a kind of carelessness…as if I had any control, as if there would ever be enough time. Grief is always a shock, a denial, an anger that makes way for a softening if I let it. As we remember my husband’s father today, it is a comfort to know they are doing what they have always done: leading the way.

On A Father Going Home

The wind swept across the cemetery
Drying tears as fast as they fell
My preacher husband shouted grace over the wind
I don’t know which one spoke louder

I wanted to say, “That hole’s far too small
to hold his heart and his life.
Let me dig it a little bigger please.
Let us hold him a bit longer until I make it fit.
A shovel, please, a shovel.”

My man-child steered me back to the car
Kicking up dust, defying death
one step at a time, even if unwilling
I glance back at the emptiness
“It was just a shell,” the wind whispered,
“Don’t wish him from glory back to ashes.”

A patriarch goes before us
Forging ahead like he always has
Reminding us with our memories of him
We gain a life by giving it up
We will not grieve as those with no hope
Knowing he pointed the way with his life
And our dad, he is already home.

suelarkinsweems, Dec 2016

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