The introduction was like this:
Death makes us reflect on life.
We pause to wonder what is the meaning of life, and what specifically might have been the meaning of the life of the person who has left.
It is important for us to ask the questions:
How did this person touch my life? How did they touch the lives of others? How did they contribute to the world? What was important and meaningful about their time here?
And these questions make us stop to reflect on the meaning of our own lives: What am I doing with my life? Is my presence here important to others; am I making a contribution; is my influence important to the well-being of those around me and to the greater world community?
Sometimes we delude ourself with the fiction that a person whom we love should and will remain with us always. Of course, this is against all reason and logic and common sense, but it seems to make sense at the time - our parents should always be here because they've always been here. The people we love should always be here because they've always been here.
When a person we love approaches death, we sometimes struggle to hold onto that fiction, to somehow make time stand still so that the inevitable conclusion cannot occur. We instictively understand that the loss and the change will be painful and confusing. And yet, the concluding event, the death, the loss, invariably makes us ask the questions which are so important to our lives.
Death reminds us that we must be careful with life and love so that our lives can be filled with meaning and so that we can carry forward the influence and contribution that our loved one has begun - or more truthfully carried on from whoever went before her.
Our grandmother's life was full of activities, people, and intelligence. Her direction of industry and contribution serves as a model for us. Her full and rich life reminds us that we are also capable, that we can be strong and industrious, that we can be a light for our own children, for those around us. Her wit and humor reminds us to bring joy into our activities and to the lives of those we touch.
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I have been thinking and writing for about 6 months about what I wanted to say, but I finally decided that I have a couple of poems that I want to read which remind me of my mother and are meaningful to me. And the reason that I'm able to read a poem and find meaning in it is because my mother had such an appreciation for literature
and passed down her love of reading to me (and all of us). I thought that I might just go to a random bookshelf and find a list of books on her shelf in this much space (about a foot of space). Here's the list:
The Negro Revolt
Natural Philosophy
4 selected Novels of Henry James
Armegeddon, Leon Uris
East Wind West Wind, Pearl Buck
Crime and Punishment
Journey in the Dark
Arundel
The Culture Consumers
Conglomerate
The Ugly Russian
Beyond Sing the Woods
In Chancery
Perfectly Clear
Plutarch
Anais Nin Reader
The Greek Treasure
Boswell in Holland
Greatest Short Stories
A couple of poems , this by Matthew Arnold called Requiescat which if don't you know your Latin means "Rest":
Requiescat
Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!
Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace her soul was yearning,
And now peace laps her round.
Her cabin'd, ample spirit,
It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.
To-night it doth inherit
The vasty hall of death.
And this, also by Matthew Arnold:
Longing
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!
Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?
Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.
And finally one that kind of appeared at 4 a.m. the other morning and that I had to get out of bed to write down. There's no title and it probably isn't finished, but....
Fortunate he or she who made acquaintance with my mother
For that lucky individual might never find another
Who more interested would ask
"Who are you? What do you do?
I'm curious and would know all of your tales."
Until the tales are spent and then might lend their ears to her intelligence
and learn something of the garden's gift or how to spell a word
Or might even be bestowed upon with dress or coat or quilt.
They might begin to wonder and learn about something other than the self
But of the wider world and some wrongs that might be righted
If we were able to, like her, lend courage to a task.
If they might take example from her industry, perhaps they left the meeting
Encouraged to apply a justice to their working day
Which might spread out throughout their lives and into others.
Fortunate he or she, like me, who made acquaintance with my mother.
I was so priviledged to know her and to be her daughter.