Grandmother Blessing (with a poem)

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.  Ruby, our oldest grandchild, turned 13 a week ago, and today she is having a few friends over to celebrate.  A milestone birthday.  I'm remembering the time just before she was born, how her four grandparents came to Berkeley expecting an imminent birth. We wound up waiting five days until she decided to join us.  

Thirteen years later, here she is:

The poem I wrote for her, a blessing poem, still hangs on our wall, thanks to a beautiful print made by our friend Bill Denham.  I thought I would share it today, in honor of this wonderful young woman.

Honu* 

Little honu,

swimming her way to shore

on the full moon’s tide.

We have scooped her up

and held her next

to our hearts,

each one of us.

 

Blessed is the mother

who labors to bear the child.

Blessed is the one

who protects so fiercely.

Blessed is the father

who attends to the mother

and who welcomes his child.

Blessed are the grandparents

who dream the baby

into the world and

add pairs of helping hands.

Blessed are the uncles and aunts

who fall in love

at first sight.

Blessed is the baby

who give us hope.

 

For a week we

lived in a bubble

outside of time.

Only birth and death

drop us into that place.

The outside world

disappears in

irrelevance.

 

A long waiting week

it was.

The two, never

losing faith, never

wavering,

surrounded by light,

held in many hearts.

So many hours, so

many long nights.

 

Then, suddenly,

she is here; the

word came,

she is here.

 

The world has

waited eons

for her.

Her gifts, yet

to be revealed,

unique on the earth,

may be exactly

what is needed

to save us all -

little honu,

so recently surfacing

from the seas of

the other world.

  

* honu = the hawaiian word for sea turtle

Still sending her blessings today...

The poem is included in my new book. If you haven't seen the book yet and are

interested, it's available from me directly or on our website.

It’s been a while since I looked at any of the poems in my recent book.  After revising and proofreading them so many times, I really thought I’d never want to look at any of them again!  But, for some reason, as my three-month scan cycle is approaching its end, I opened the book to look at my Going to Hel section, which includes a bunch of poems from when I was actively dealing with cancer.

I have been fortunate to be 2 ½ years in remission now. Sometimes, life almost seems “normal” now.  Sometimes.  Almost. But then scanxiety (a word I'd never heard until cancer) unavoidably creeps in. And today I re-read the following poem:

Undying Companion 

 

Once upon a time,

         the word cancer

evoked such terror

         that merely reading

or saying it superstitiously

         tempted a raging

death curse into

         the body.

 

How things have changed,

         now that the interloper

invisibly insinuated its rapidly

         growing presence inside.

I can say the word now,

         without flinching.

Even after surgical removal,

         this disease has asserted

its place as my undying companion,

         and always will.

 

I will walk with cancer.

         I will dance with cancer,

I will sit with cancer, and

         I will sleep with cancer,

until I sleep

         for good.

 

It is not that the terror

         has dispersed.

It is only that uncertainty,

         which is true for all,

has traveled from a

         complacent distance

to take hold

         of my hand.

            

Uncertainty is truly what we all have. Here it is again, my undying companion.