Joe’s 31st birthday today

Oh, Joe, we are still that three-legged dog, just limping along…. but we’ve also got David and Lotte and little Dell to keep us going.

 

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even

when you have no stomach for it

and everything you’ve held dear

crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,

your throat filled with the silt of it.

When grief sits with you, its tropicalheat

thickening the air, heavy as water

more fit for gills than lungs;

when grief weights you like your own flesh

only more of it, an obesity of grief,

you think, How can a body withstand this?

Then you hold life like a face

bewtween your palms, a plain face

no charming smile, no violet eyes,

and you say, yes, I will take you

I will love you, again.

 

~ Ellen Bass