Two Poems and a Poem : Ritual One, Day 12

 Two Poems:

“How to Knit a Sweater (A Realist’s Prayer)” by Barbara Kingsolver 

“My Father in English” by Richard Blanco

A Poem:

Love & Family

by ljkemp

Uncomfortable. That’s putting it mildly. How anyone can be comfortable with death

will forever be beyond my understanding. Don’t tell me to have faith. I believe in G-d;

my faith does not cancel out my fear of everything else. As I hold my loved ones 

this day in my thoughts, we drive slowly down the path to my grandparents’ grave, 

they lay side by side. My mother squats down and places our four stones, one each for us 

and one each for them. “Look who I brought with me today... it’s Laurie.” She turned to me 

then and told me when she dies she wants her ashes spread over them. And I cried. 

And I tried to calculate in my head how long they have been gone. He, my grandfather, 

died the year before I got married. Now celebrating our 25th, that means it’s been 26 years. 

I swallow back more tears. My son, now 22, never got to meet him. And I think how 

they would have loved each other so. She, my grandmother, died when my son was 5. 

Five from 22 is 17. She’s been gone so long. Both of them have, their love and marriage 

a beacon. They shared more years together than I have yet lived. Sixty-two years interrupted 

only by cancer. It took him before he could bless our wedding challah, before he could 

witness our vows. Yet, the word I most learned to love and know him through was love. 

Or family. I think love. I think family. Yes, I learned to love and know him through these words. 

Love and Family.

Italics: First italicized line was from Kingsolver’s poem, the second was from Blanco’s poem.