I thought 2020 was awful enough with the pandemic, little did I know that 2021 would not only continue the reign of loss, it would deepen the layer of grief already experienced by many.
A few weeks ago, my family suffered the loss of my beloved cousin. For me, it was like losing a little brother. He was a loving father, a treasured member of our family, an irreplaceable friend and to many youngsters, their beloved coach (he was a veteran coach in our community). And he was just shy of turning 48 years old. "Too young," many of us said. "You left us too early," we all agreed.
The void he is leaving is huge. To witness his life, his passing, and then his burial left me emotionally raw. There is nothing more I can do than to allow the waves of grief to move through me... and so it is, after watching his casket close, tossing the last flower on his grave and watching them lower him into the ground that I turned to my writing for some level of reprieve from the grief. Instead, I found that the remedy to grief was to give it voice and volume.
The following poem was inspired and dedicated to my cousin, Jesus Emmanuel Ramos. May it also offer a sense of normalcy to the depth of grief that we are all experiencing in varying degrees and may you find some solace that grief - like death - is a part of living.
Let the Body Grieve
Let the sadness come
Let the tears flow
Let the anguish course through every vein
Let the grief gush
and the wailing sound
May every breath bring the lungs pain
Let the chest heave
and the mind go
There is only today, not tomorrow
No comfort here in the words or the songs
You who I loved
is now listless and calm
Let the heart break
Inconsolable through time
There is no peace in seeing you gone.
Rest in peace cous'... until we meet again.
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