Grief’s Gifts

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Grief lives in your body

It doesn’t leave, it simmers

It doesn’t magically go away

It lives on your breath

It pulses with your heart

It flows from a trinket

It stares at you from a photo

it lives in the letter of goodbye

in the recipe you love

It smells in the dog collar

it purrs from the pillow

It hums in the shadows

It stalks you when you least

expect it, in the quiet times

in the family times

driving in the car

laying in your bed

on the beach,

at the Dairy Queen

listening to a favorite song

And tears fall, they come

unabashed, choking you

flowing with so much feeling

joy and pain in a whirling vortex

of love, of loss, of remembrance

of celebration, of tenderness

‘I miss you’. seems hardly

enough in this heart ache

hardly enough in this loss

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Grief lives in me

I celebrate it

I welcome it

My list is long now

So I never forget

any of you

My heart is vast

because of you

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jeanne adwani. @copyright. 20121

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