Tag: loss

grief, poetry, Uncategorized, Writing

All Is Not Lost

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

All is Not Lost

What is grief but another form of love?

Without pain, is life truly well lived?

These are the questions I ask myself, crying Why deep in the night.

Well lived means well-loved, means well-worn, and sometimes worn out. Read between the lines of worry and sadness.  It’s ok to be tired sometimes. Rest is respite, not weakness.

What is it that keeps us going, to love again and again, in so many ways? The longer one loves, the deeper the grief of love lost. We are so good at it now, we even have anticipatory grief. The great and wise “They” tells me.  Who knew?

I do know this:  Once loved, we will never be truly lost. You will live in my heart, memory and soul, and  I in yours. We are memories, we are words on a page, to be read and reread, and even when I am lost and grieved, our stories will live on to be told and retold, from the tender lips of our children’s children.

Uncategorized

The Price of Addiction

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

Although I always thought it would be this way, I really never was prepared for you to die and leave me with the memories. You died a month before i got married. I remember it like a sucker punch to the gut. I knew you would die  before me, what with the life you led. No matter how much you prepare for the inevitable you are never ready to tell you beloved children their father died. Here is what i remember. Our first date, he was so nervous, and he took me to the fanciest place in town, the Sheraton Tara, where they served a 5 course meal. I knew he didn’t have a car, so we went on the date he driving my Ford Fiesta, I remember him revving it up and saying “Come on Betsy!” He knew more than I did about the sherbet they served to clear our palate. He had a little triangle shaped scar, from ironing his shirt for our date, the iron touched his belly and he was burned, as he ironed his shirt. Nobody as far as I knew, had ever cared enough to iron their shirt for a date with me. I knew early on he had an alcohol problem. But I loved him anyway. He had the most beautiful blue eyes. And he was kind. When he found out he would be a father, he was stunned to think I would hesitate to share my life with him. He wanted to be a dad, he told me for the first time he loved me. Once before that he tried, but I didn’t get it. He picked me up for a date and gave me a red rose. His sister later told me that a red rose means love, he was trying to say he loved me. I didn’t know about those things, and really, I wonder, how many times in my life did I miss those little messages, those little signals and traditions of love? He loved the little river band and heart. He saw them perform together. He took me to see Crosby Stills and Nash. Because I loved the song the Southern Cross. It’s too bad everything went wrong, but we all tried so hard to save him. Anyway, this is about what I remember the little things that nobody else knows, that I can share with my kids who never really knew him. 

Fall, poetry, Summer, Uncategorized, Writing

Fallen Apples

The Writing Life of Kimberly Nash

Trees sigh and shed tears of yellow leaves onto the breeze. 

Sad, for the passing of summer.

The leaves having soaked the lemony summer sunshine up

Into their veins, yet in vain

For the sun is not eternal, and none of us are immune from dying. 

Except, perhaps, the thousands year old boulder excavated a hundred years ago, where I sit, holding an apple up to my nose, eyes closed. (You can’t really smell an apple unless your eyes are closed) Cinnamon, clove, citrus and the earthy scent of raw honey. 

Red jewels with shiny skins the apples lie in the golden and green grass like treasures. Prepared for sweetness, I bite the smooth hard skin and it bursts beneath my teeth with a snap and a flood of tartness breaks the spell the scents have put me under. 

Autumn has crept up as usual, to spring in front of us and wave her red-gold-orange-flag to dazzle by day and enchant by night with a crisp diamond studded sky, as if winter is not far behind. 

I can’t stop the seasons.

But I can still take the broken apple to the barn and share it with my friends, the horse, and the donkey, and we can still bathe in the warm honey sunshine. 

See the dust rise up from the hay bales and dance in that last fools gold light of summer.