Filling Holes

At eight

I wondered

Why they cried

Around a box of glossy wood.

Flowers and photographs

Pinched cheeks and, “My you’ve grown.”

Sitting on a chair

Swinging feet

Waiting to see if he would smile

The way my Grandpa always could.

At thirteen

I heard

The whisper of voices

The phone ringing in the night.

Winter’s wind snatched frozen tears

From a warm brother in my bed.

Alone on a pew

Watching the box

She’ll get out. She’ll play with me

Like sisters always do.

At twenty-five

I waited

Knowing why they cried

Around a bed of my lost dreams.

Pain dry and stuffed deep inside

She’s fine, they said. They were wrong.

Two hands in mine

Three girls waiting

He said he’d always be there

He promised.

At thirty

I wondered

How she'd had been there

From the beginning of my existence.

Crisp clean sheets and knitted mittens

A quiet dignity born from grief.

“This will hurt

For a little while,” she promised.

As she dictated her obituary.

She was wrong.

At forty

I absorbed

Her saturation of the emptiness

That death had left behind.

The holes that never filled

The wounds that never healed

The aches that lingered

And then returned. Intense.

What are friends for?

They fill.

Then leave holes of their own.

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