We always assumed
the golden cord of family ties,
just assumed
that golden cord
was always there,
binding us together,
connecting us as a family,
like the web of strings
wrapped ‘round the fingers
in the children’s game
called Cat’s Cradle.
In truth, the family assumed
the tie that binds,
that golden cord,
so well,
we largely ignored it.
tending to face outward
from the family circle,
focused on our individual,
busy, separate lives . . .
until
one day,
so impossibly,
so suddenly,
so catastrophically,
our son/brother/husband/father
F——
died.
Wrapped in the golden cord
we had only assumed,
F—— fell away from the world,
away from the family…
through our grief,
cinching the cord around us
as he went,
by his absence
drawing us together,
pulling us tight.
And now, this week,
after 94 years
of a well-lived and blessed life,
it was our loving mother’s
time to fall away.
The woman who knit the golden cord,
and wrapped it around us,
the woman who kept it tended
and made it golden,
has fallen away from us
and by her falling
is drawing us together,
pulling us tight,
calling us to
remember
the golden cord
of family ties.
Life is short,
but love is long,
she would want her death to remind us.
Life is short
but love is long.
*Written at the death of a brother, and read at the funeral of our mother.
In memory of both.