the bereavement room

The bereavement room

The hollow, soul-filling, sweet melancholy 

Of that that ugly room 

Has bored its way into my DNA.

Becoming the first chapter

In a book of 1000 stages of grief

That became a volume of growth, understanding.

There’s a chair in the corner

that ached my back when I woke in the morning

But for several days, I called it home

Because home could never be far 

From where my heart was falling apart.

I kept my homework in a bag

Never opened on the floor

Because I would be a good student tomorrow 

When we all went home 

But that tomorrow never came.

So instead I watched people come and go.

With their worry, their anxiety

Their insufferable caring

But needed all the same.

Because we are not alone in that room.

There is a solidarity in those who grieve.

Different than the obligatory condolences of funeral homes.

Because despite everything

That said we shouldn’t 

Through tears

And painful end of life planning

We laughed and smiled

And we remembered.