Death of a Parent

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of my mother’s death. My father died three years ago at the beginning of November.

I missed them on Thanksgiving, knowing they would have been beaming at seeing their children and grandchildren gathered together. And on a day like today I know they would have called from Florida to make sure I was surviving the snowstorm. They were always sure the weather was worse than it was (although this time they might have been right).

Many years ago a friend told me that when your parents die there is no one between you and God. That stuck with me and resonated when I read this poem in our prayer book. It is the custom at my temple for mourners to share a personal reading. I didn’t find anything that captured the profound love my parents had for each other and for their family. Instead I chose something that expresses my feeling of loss and vulnerability.

Death of a Parent

Linda Pastan

Move to the front

of the line

a voice says, and suddenly

there is nobody

left standing between you

and the world, to take

the first blows

on their shoulders.

This is the place in books

where part one ends, and part two begins,

and there is no part three.

The slate is wiped

not clean but like a canvas

painted over in white

so that a whole new landscape

must be started,

bits of the old

still showing underneath -

those colors sadness lends

to a certain hour of evening.

Now the line of light

at the horizon

is the hinge between earth

and heaven, only visible

a few moments

as the sun drops

its rusted padlock

into place.