Life goes on, and your memory lives in hidden moments
that catch me when I’m not looking
and tug at the heart you helped make bigger.
The brazen, ruthless grief is undeniable.
But the subtle times and the little things;
those are the places where my feet stumble.
I am glad to stumble, though,
because then I have to stop to get my footing.
And when I stop, there you are,
smiling at the flowers you smell and the colors you see
in the bloom of this present Spring, (you’d have loved it this year),
naming every beautiful thing a painting.
And though I cannot feel your soft face in my hands,
or see that twinkle in your eye, or watch you
light up a room with a grin, or breathe with you
in another labored breath, you are with me always
because your fingerprints are on my heart
and I am forever changed.
~Written May 8, 2017, by Season Naify
For my Grandmother who raised me, and in my youth aptly named herself “Bellemere,” which is French for “Beautiful Mother.” She left this world in January of this year, with family in a circle around her – touching her and whispering love, my father holding her feet, and me holding her hand, caressing her head and singing softly in her ear, “It Is Well With My Soul,” her favorite Hymn.
Creature Speak 