I recently came across a poem I wrote when my grandma passed away in late 2019.
I am a fool, or at least the start of one,
To think that a seedling could grow in Autumn
And not die when the bitter Winter set in.
We met when I was born,
You held me, you loved me,
You left.
You spent the next twenty years
Coming and going like wind whipping through
My carefree, tangled six, seven, eight year old hair
You filled the spaces around me, then gone too quick
We met again last September,
When doting parents had moved away
And you were my family at last.
Filled with nerves wriggling through my veins
I travelled to you, 6 hours, into your home.
You welcomed with open arms so wide
they wrapped around me again and again until not an inch of me was free
You filled my head with fancy.
With set-in-stone generational opinions accompanied with hot air
from drinking too much wine and brandy by the fire.
You filled my tummy with home.
Made-from-scratch lasange, sunday roasts,
vegetables we picked together from your garden.
You filled my heart with warmth,
set against the cold Cornish air
that stung our noses and cheeks on our morning strolls.
That time was gone too soon,
the 6 hours back to reality was stretched
as if I had heard the chuffa chuffa chuffa of the train
for 6 years instead of 6 hours.
London seemed more bitter,
but my heart was still full.
When they called me to say you were going,
the warmth that had filled my heart drained.
I was a fool to think this would last.
Now you're in the process, the going process,
here but soon not to be.
You linger in the heaviness of my chest,
the tremble of my lips,
the fogged memories slipping in my mind,
and I, heart quivering with a cold emptiness say my last goodbye,
too soon after my hello again.