The Promise

          for Julie


This I can promise you, you who are bereft in your loss:
She is gone from the external world but remains with you.
She will be there for you when you need her most.
You will feel her guiding you when you are quiet in yourself.

You will honor her and remember her and carry on her traditions.
You will cook a special dish and she will be there.
You will arrange flowers and cherish a peony and she will be there.
You will wrap a present in her special way and she will be there.

I know these things because my mother is with me still,
Though she died nigh on fifty years ago.
And I have children who never knew her
And births she missed and I sorely missed having her with me.

But I keep her memory alive and I give her to my children
In ways they know and ways they do not know
Because she is in me and is acting through me.
It is not just stories of another time, it happens right now.

When I set out a vase with gladiolas, her favorite flowers,
She is present in a way that defies logic.
I feel her love and I express my love to my children
And in that way she touches me and them with her love.