Finding It Hard To Cry ... Now

Finding It Hard To Cry ... Now
By Gloria Faye Brown Bates/aka Granny Gee 

　



I imagine myself walking on the sand ... once again

Once again ... to feel my son

My mind ... went back to the last night

To the night ... I saw him last

In the box ... out of the corner of my eye

The box with ... all ... that ... light

A light ... spotlighting a figure lying inside a ... box

A little three year old boy trying to climb up

To see his daddy for the last time

Daddy! Daddy! I want to see my Daddy!

I was too far away ... though ... I was there

There, at the opposite side of the room

I couldn't feel anything ... the powerful medicine

Protected me from the awful knowledge, pain

Of ... knowing my only child, my son ... was dead

I tried to float to where my son lay in the box

Somehow, I couldn't make it there

I floated to a couch, to sit beside my son's aunt

I was a leaf blowing in the wind ... I moved

When the wind ... blew

Here, there ... I had no control

It seemed I smiled a soft smile, while floating in a dream

An awful dream ... that for the moment didn't make me hurt

Until ... my eyes would look toward ... the box in the bright light

Did they shine a spotlight on him? Was it my imagination?

When I looked, I saw him vividly ... my baby, my child ... my son

Whose little boy was trying to climb inside the box ... my grandson

I wasn't aware of anything ... yet, I was ... but, wasn't

How was I alive ... oh my God ... Tommy's dead

I should be dead ... the worst had happened ... my child was gone

I looked around ... his wife was greeting people, smiling

Was I at a party? I'm sure she was on the medicine that numbs one

Numbs one from the pain ... I wondered before, how people could smile ... now, I know

Walking on the damp sand, stopping to wiggle my toes

Feel the spray from the waves washing up on the shore

Close my eyes, feel the sunshine caress my skin

The wind blew to dry my tears

I can now, only cry in my mind ... my imagination

I can't cry aloud, anymore ... I'm not sure 'why' ...

I'm sleepy now ... I will go lay me down

To sleep the peace of being asleep

I miss my son, Tommy ... I never forget

I feel the pain after four years ... in a different way

Strange ... I don't cry out loud, now ... only in my mind

This month, Tommy would have been forty-four years old

Do you say Happy Birthday to the ... dead?

Is it right to say, 'Happy Birthday, Tommy'?

I still grieve for you, Son ... no one but, me ... knows it, now

I always remember your birthday, I should

I gave birth to you ... you were my baby boy

You were the only child I ever had ... I don't have you, anymore

I have no ties to you, Son ... two children you had

Never hearing from them, severed the bond I once had

I don't know they can ever be mended again

When you died, all that was a part of you died as well

I'm the only part alive ... that I know

Why? Because ... at one time, I used to be a mother

I can only 'see you' in expressions you had ... like mine

Hear you at times in some things I say, you said like me

Feel you, when we say something ... you would have said

I wonder how other grieving mothers feel

Do they go through such as I

Is this how one grieves ... in the fourth year?

Grieve in a way one can't cry?

Grieve in a way ... you can speak your child's name

Without crying ... finding it hard to cry ... now