Hi Readers,
I usually send out a bonus Substack on the last Tuesday of the month: usually a little catch-up of personal stories, or a fun chance to address a new topic. But this month, the last Tuesday of the month falls a day after Memorial Day, and so I wanted to use this space to send this note a day early.
In this fast-paced, frenetic world, with millions of well-funded outlets attempting to vie for our attention, it can be really tough to slow down - reflect - remember, and even grieve. As wars continue to wage throughout our world, especially in Ukraine and Gaza, and as war veterans continue to die, sometimes years and decades after their time in combat but still deeply impacted by what they experienced in war, I think Memorial Day is a holiday we can’t just pass by without noticing , and paying our respects.
To do so, I wanted to share with you again some words I wrote last year - and a special poem I wrote in memory of Memorial Day.
I hope you get a chance today and this week to breathe and to remember.
Angela
For Memorial Day
In America as of late, Memorial Day tends to blend with Veteran’s Day and the start of summer: so that we think the holiday is mostly about red, white and blue mixed with barbecue. But the truth is that Memorial Day began as an occasion for national grief and lament, to honor the deaths of so many dead soldiers, after the Civil War and World Wars I and II, and later, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm and Iraq and Afghanistan and so many more unnamed wars where people died.
As we stumble away from the recent years of COVID pandemic, I am still waiting for a moment of national grieving and lament. As we approach the five-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, I am still waiting for national grieving and lament over the deaths and trauma caused by racism and white supremacy.
I wrote this poem after spending time at a senior living community, where together we remembered one of the residents who had recently died. In this moment of shared grief, we experienced healing and an opportunity for hope and new life.
This poem was originally shared at Church Anew.
Remembering
He tells me that her name was Mary
and she says that he walked her to the door
in his walker.
His face got all scrunched up,
wincing,
when he painfully raised up his body;
leaning heavy on the arms of his chair
Wobbly Standing
Grasping forward for support,
clutching the gray, metal walker ringed with foam
Only for a second, his hurt became visible,
A fleeting instant, and
he didn’t let her see.
He made them laugh:
stupid jokes
tricks
They start to chortle.
We cover our mouths
Our eyes are red and watering
We bite our chapped lips
Did you ever notice that laughing
and crying
both bring tears
So why is one so shameful?
Why are both so rare?
Except the tears of self-pity
streaming down taut cheeks
Tears falling from hollow eyes
of vacant people who cannot feel
for others.
We emote in emojis.
LOL
CRYING
In person we are all so happy
and so busy
Too busy to laugh
Too busy to cry
We are cool and unruffled
Competent
OK
I have to be OK
I’m not OK
I miss him.
We pretend like we don’t remember.
What’s the alternative?
We have to keep moving forward
the invisible hand nudges
pushes, shoves, suffocates.
He shows me a photo of her:
he keeps it close, always
the photo is on his phone
taken years ago
when phones rang
and stayed in one spot
and you had to ask who was calling
and she said
It’s me
I remember her voice.
Dementia could not take
the memory of her voice.
Sonorous and full of feeling
with the long, slow A’s and O’s
and collapsed second syllable,
swallowed silent
like so much corn and bread and beer.
the flat and rural Midwest
decades of labor
pregnant x8, at least
I remember leather gloves
Cologne and cigarettes
A dignified wool coat
A tan hat covered in mosquito netting
Black fingernails bruised by a hammer
a sweaty face and a dripping smile
Biceps bulging out of a blue and red t-shirt
dark brown hooded sensitive eyes
He said it was the carburetor.
So much remembering
A hoarse child’s voice and blonde, shaggy hair
A gentle, patient, giving spirit, and the hell of cancer in a young mother
Folding up the wheelchair at the end of the day in high school
An agent who talked fast, worked fast, lived fast: who never knew a stranger
A colleague, a revelation, a closeness, a signed book, a probable overdose
John said in Flanders fields the poppies grow
He watched them blow
in the breeze as he died, wheezing.
Pneumonia in a war hospital by the battlefields of France
so far from Guelph and home.
Do you remember?
When the fields were red with blood
When 17-year-old boys
died
cried
I stand in front of an airless room
My elders watch me
they are 91 and 101 and 85
They have so much to remember
I yearn to remember
I pray in halting prose
In silent spaces
the memories come
Like a crashing wave they wash over us
We can’t get out of the way
It’s bearing down
Crushing
Loud pounding pulsating
Frothing cool refreshing
I stand, undefeated, as the tide rolls away.
I am in the humid room, but
I am somewhere else
At the end of a dusty dirt road
the sweaty face smiles at me
He wraps me in a hug
We remember.
P.S. …
A Few Notes:
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What a beautiful and poignant offering, Angela. Thank you ♥️