There was a special person underneath
All that time I assumed
you were transforming,
would transform.
I’d hoped for a caterpillar,
excited
to watch your
metamorphosis.
I never considered
this would turn into
a sacrifice.
Parasites
nestle their eggs
inside the soft bellies of
their host
to provide
nourishment.
When I’d scratch under the
exoskeleton of addiction,
I‘d see you in your
insistence on coming
home, even though
you were high, or you
begging for a family
movie night even
though they put you to
sleep.
I wish I’d have
held your hand
and watched you
dream.
How can I continue to
act from love
after
you suffocated
from inside? - Katie Rizzo
My book of poems from the first year after my son’s death, None of Them Are You, is out today. We picked Día de Muertos as launch day hoping for a little help to get the words all the way to him.
You can order it anywhere books are sold like: Barnes and Noble, or Amazon
***
Someone asked, “What about your other two kids? Don’t they feel left out with the books and poems focusing on their brother?”
That transactional thinking is partly what got us here in the first place. There are no favorites, no hierarchies in this love. Once there were three, and now there are two.
We live in the desert and on the rare occasions that thunder and lighting billow from the clouds, all the plants perk up and sparkle. It’s not just rain; it’s the electricity. Similarly, I hope my boys aren’t showered by endless sunshine but feel the rumble of boulders knocking in the sky. This death rattles all of us. It didn’t just happen to me.
If there is any truth to the wives’ tale that the veil is thinner on this day above all others, please have Nicholas to see the poems. Let him know that his name continues. We’re not ‘moving on’ or trying to forget. There’s no forgetting. His body might not be here, but his spirit definitely is - and when it isn’t, we’ll pick it up and pretend.
Because this world is too small without him.
And if he isn’t able to listen, this grief needs to be worked through, the bubbles massaged out, this clay will break in the kiln. Our youngest, Joey, told me that I need to post more. Four times a day - is his motto. And those posts don’t have to be well thought out, he says. I am not a four a day posting kind of person.
And still, this is what Joey’s teaching me: shrinking our love doesn’t make others feel better.
And love isn’t a hierarchy, it isn’t a drop of water that becomes the ocean. Love is each of the elements; it’s the hydrogen, and oxygen. Love is the strong nuclear force that holds the protons, neutrons, and electrons together. You can’t point to one as being more loved. It’s all connection.
***
If you want to help get my books out into people’s hands -
Ask your library to carry my books:
None of Them Are You’s ISBN - 9798987726839 and
The Trimesters of Grief’s ISBN - 9798897472949
Leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon - the books get promoted at 10 reviews, then bumped up at 50 and 100 reviews.
Tell a friend about the books.
💙
