I trembled and choked up as I read the eulogy I prepared. It didn’t help that my aunt recited a poem my great grandfather wrote, a poem he wrote after my great grandmother died.
This poem hung in my grandparents’ home (with a photo of my great grandmother beneath it—a photo from when she was young and her beauty still in tact) until my grandmother died in 1990. Now the poem and photo hangs in my aunt’s dining room.
It was sad for me to grow up thinking of him alone, living in a boarding house, crying whilst writing that poem, and for him to die alone, just as mom did.
I stepped into the center of the memorial garden and immediately was wrought with nerves and sadness. As I spoke and got choked up, my sister stood behind me, out of my view, turning her back as she sobbed along with me. My brother stood silent and emotionless holding the box of remains.
Had I had the chance to speak first, I probably could have kept it together, rather thank choke back tears in front of an audience who didn’t give a shit about me.
Yet again, someone else was more important than me or my siblings, her children, her next of kin.
This poem hung in my grandparents’ home (with a photo of my great grandmother beneath it—a photo from when she was young and her beauty still in tact) until my grandmother died in 1990. Now the poem and photo hangs in my aunt’s dining room.
It was sad for me to grow up thinking of him alone, living in a boarding house, crying whilst writing that poem, and for him to die alone, just as mom did.
I stepped into the center of the memorial garden and immediately was wrought with nerves and sadness. As I spoke and got choked up, my sister stood behind me, out of my view, turning her back as she sobbed along with me. My brother stood silent and emotionless holding the box of remains.
Yet again, someone else was more important than me or my siblings, her children, her next of kin.
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