God Grant Me The Serenity

How to go on with the rest of my life is the challenge for me now. What does one do when their child precedes them in death by their own hand? How does one make peace with that? Justin’s father takes his direction from the Alcoholic’s Anonymous Serenity Prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;

the courage to change the things I can;

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

But accepting a thing you cannot change is difficult when that thing is patently unacceptable to you. Missing my son for the rest of my mortal life is unacceptable to me, and to date I have not been able to defer to the will of God on this. Maybe that makes me a sinner. Maybe it makes me a foolishly stubborn person unable to yield. Maybe I am my own worst enemy in this. But as Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in her poem Dirge Without Music, “I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.”

Things That Will Not Be

I will never again look into your soul-lit eyes,

ocean deep, heavy-lashed and richly brown.

Nor see them, full and tender as you look on

the face of your first born child.

I will not hear the living cadence of your voice,

with quick-paced, clear delivery.

Nor listen to it round and

deepen with the years.

You will not be present at holiday gatherings,

across the dining room table, laughing with siblings,

talking politics and philosophy, as you catch

up on each others lives.

I will not see the three of you rapt in conversation,

against the background din of grandchildren at play;

Basking in each other’s company, after second helpings

of candied yams, collard greens and lamb.

I will not catch a stolen glimpse of affection bestowed on the special

woman you chose. Or marvel at the way your toddler

runs to you, big-eyed, beautiful, and laughing

as you bend to pick her up.

I will miss your precise, long-limbed, athletic movements,

as they grow contained and cautious over time.

And won’t witness your spirit mellow with acceptance,

into the peaceful steadiness of age.

I will not watch your narrow, muscled frame give way

to mid-life thickness, or your hairline recede against

thinning salt and pepper gray.

And I won’t receive your teasing phone calls to check

on me, and ask me how I’m doing. Or hear

with sudden recognition how much

you sound like my father.

And in the twilight end of days,

there will be no final visit from you at my bedside

to hold my hand; proof of how much

I’ve been loved.

You will not stand by my grave, scatter my ashes,

or speak fondly of me to your children,

living on in devoted remembrance.

All this,

you have stolen from me.

I have been partially erased,

irrevocably robbed of future;

Cursed forever

by the memory of things,

that have not been,

and will not be.

Forever,

Your Mother