TheBanyanTree: Sing a Song for a Dead Person

[Margaret R. Kramer]

12/15/05
I will write after work __________________love you and miss you COME HOME! 
 RAY& GEO.

I still grab six plates, six knives, and six glasses when I set the table
for a holiday dinner.  Oops!  Wait!  There’s a person missing and we’re down
to five.  The extra place setting goes back into the cupboard.

This Easter is difficult.  I think it’s because last Easter came so early
and Ray had only been dead for about a month.  I was too numb to know my
name much less incorporate that Ray was gone.  I’m well aware this year that
there’s an empty spot in my life and the tears have been flowing most of the
weekend.

But it’s a good Easter, all in all.  Joe and I went out to breakfast
together.  Then we worked out together, which is a first.  He had a
quadruple bypass 10 years ago and works out in a hospital gym.  But it was
closed today, so he went with me to my club.

He walked on the treadmill while I did a 45 minute cardio session on the
elliptical.  He now knows how much I sweat.  Sweat drips from nose to my
toes.

After working out, we went to the cemetery.  Even though I usually don’t
like seeing a lot of people there, I feel good when I see so many stopping
by to visit their loved ones.  Ray was there, of course.  I can easily find
his stone now, because I can see the small stones and money on top of it.
It’s almost like he’s waving at me.  The peeps we left for him last week
were gone.  Did the deer eat them?

We stopped and visited Alice.  Joe had left a rose for her earlier this
week.

And we visited my grandparents.

We wished them all a Happy Easter.

Joe dropped me of at noon and I began a Martha Stewart effort at getting
Easter dinner ready.  The ham is now in the oven.  The boys went with their
mother to the park.  The house is quiet.

And I can be alone with Ray for a moment.

Here’s a part of another Bill Holm poem:

Magnificat
By Bill Holm

It’s a mystery why one
note following another
sometimes makes music,
sometimes breaks the heart,
sometimes not.

Don’t ask the reason.

When we explain music
there’ll be no need to die
Or no need not to.

Listen as long as you can;
sing whenever the right tune
arrives inside you.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com

If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk
forever in my garden. 
-Claudia Ghandi