Time does not bring relief; you all have lied

Who told me time would ease me of my pain!

I miss him in the weeping of the rain;

I want him at the shrinking of the tide;

The old snows melt from every mountain-side,

And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;

But last year’s bitter loving must remain

Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.

There are a hundred places where I fear

To go,—so with his memory they brim.

And entering with relief some quiet place

Where never fell his foot or shone his face

I say, “There is no memory of him here!”

And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

It’s been too long since I shared some poetry here. I found this one tucked into my thousand and one notes. I love poems about loss, because they so vividly capture the emotion of having and holding, for a moment, something so precious and real. It was my sister Ibiso’s birthday a few days ago, and as the day quietly passed, I struggled to articulate why I didn’t want to mention it. Not to my parents, or sisters or anyone else, afraid that the reminder of so special a day would mine old hurts, resurrect them to the surface and bring pain anew. Which is what I am loathe to do, yet it saddens me to think sometimes that in a bid to cloister ourselves from pain, we may expose ourselves to the deeper pain of forgetting.