grief and praise

This is a time of poetry and slowing down as I try to let myself feel and emerge within the grief at the loss of my maternal grandmother, Earla Taylor Woodworth, known affectionately by her grandchildren as Zumu, or “Zoom,” who died on Monday at the age of 93.

This is a time of grief, cycled back again, but different this time. Everything always changes.

I feel appreciation of sweet times, special moments, moments that go beyond space and time. Like receiving her countless cards over the years, for every birthday and holiday, adorned with stickers. Her delicious lasagna, chocolate “Earla” cake, and mac & cheese. The time she made my bed for me, just like my mom did when I moved into my dorm room freshman year of college, after bringing a mattress, sheets and comforter to help me move into a new apartment after a hard break-up. The way she was always ready (and impatient) for the next meal. Her love of holidays in general, especially the sweet pumpkin and Christmas outfits for her great-grandkids. How proud she was, crying with happiness, when she first met and held my son, just 8 hours after his birth, the first person to hold him after me and Marcus. She beat cancer three times. She loved a good sale and garage sale finds. She passed on a lineage to both me and my mother of loving and working at Silver Bay YMCA of the Adirondacks. She cared for her family, always. She supported me in so many ways. She passed on a lineage of love.

I let the grief slow me down
Take Notice! she says
You and They and Them are all alive.
This heart that cracks
is also a seed ready to burst
up and out.
Come. I am ready.

-

A minute can hold the universe
just like each child’s life does
and is.

Give yourself a minute for being,
doing pushed aside for now
then another minute, maybe a week from now.

String together your being minutes
into a charm bracelet you actually wear
instead of keeping in your jewelry box.

Let your full being take up the space of an
emerging March daffodil
gently pushing last year’s detritus out of the way
offering your Yellow
to the falling snow and beaming sun alike.