Posts tagged “grief”

My grandfather Nils Voss, born in 1908, died this week at 99. We weren't close, and now I realize how much I never knew about him. I'm left with an image of him on his porch, rum in hand, laughing. He did well. Goodbye, grampa.

Today's attacks hit home in the most literal sense. The bombs went off meters from my desk, on the lines I ride every morning. I finally understand what it meant to be in Madrid or New York. London is my city, my home, and today someone hurt it. I'm writing this for me.

Life is full of joy and suffering simultaneously. Don't feel guilty for laughing when others are hurting. If you can help, help. If you can't, live fully anyway. Laugh for those who can't. Savor what you have. Live harder in memory of those you've lost.

A poem about a fractured relationship with my father, a man I loved who became my enemy. I'm desperate to forgive him but the wounds won't heal. I hate what he's become while mourning who he was.

Just when I was starting to forget.

A poem and prose piece about a friendship, or father-son relationship, that curdled into something unforgivable. I wanted to forgive, to rebuild those sandcastles, but the wounds won't close. Every time I see your face, I hear the echoes.