Final Farewells

We didn’t make the funeral, and now almost a year later we make it to the graveside of Poppy.

That’s COVID19 for you. We are not alone in such journeys.

Time to say goodbye and prayers.

Nana, David, Sheridan and I, standing in a row, on windy, warm day; our prayers rising into the air.

Roses bloom whilst visitors gather for funerals and grave side prayers.

Nana shows us the plaque.

We meditate and contemplate.

If he was here, he’d be telling jokes and stories.

He’d be taking us for a walk around the block.

Instead we see him through the memories of neighbours ‘I remember Howard, every day he came outside and say hello’ as David and I walk around the block without him.

And as we walk to my brother’s grave, I see this one. And I think of this little one who had no earthly life, whose twin lives on.

And soon we are walking to one of my brother’s resting place.

And we remember him.

Offer prayers, but I have no flowers.

I look at all the graves for those in the worlds beyond.

This is what their loved ones chose to remember them with.

I find myself capturing the rows of trees, hill tops, and thinking for a moment of how this grave yard now holds both the earthly remains of Poppy and my brother.

And now it’s time to say goodbye.

Perhaps Poppy is telling his stories to my brother now.

Or my brother is introducing him to new friends.