Mother's Day

Okay, Hallmark, you win. On this occasion of my first Mother's Day without my mother's hand to hold and cheek to kiss, I'll mark the occasion with remembrance. Below is a poem I wrote three years ago and now that "soon we must" has come to pass. As I knew it someday would. If I was more techno-savvy, I'd include a recording of me playing this most beautiful jazz ballad. If you want the multi-media experience, find the tune yourself and play it while you read.

In the garden where you live, there is a statue

A mother leaning back with a baby boy up on her knee.

Such love between them, immortalized in shining metal.

And so do we feel sitting in the sunshine, pigeons pecking at our feet,

Your eyes closed letting the sun warm your bones.

Your hand in mine, blood still flowing in its 90-year old veins.

You are my loving mother and I am your Golden boy

You praise me and shower me with blessings that I don’t wholly deserve

but who can refuse such love?

Your words are for me as the sunlight for you

after so many days indoors.

Today, like so many days, I come to soothe you with music.

You sit by my side, eyes closed in a beatific smile,

your beautiful blue-veined hands singing what your voice cannot,

while out ring the notes from the old jazz standard

“Never Let Me Go.”

And now it’s the song we silently sing as we sit side-by-side in the sunlit garden

gazing out at the statue of a mother and her boy.

“Never Let Me Go”

knowing that soon we must.

Soon we must.