My brother Ray died seven years ago today. I still remember the shock of hearing about his death. I was at work and it was all I could do to gather together my belongings, call my husband, and find my way home. Seven years. So much has happened in that space of time. Too much to write about here; there is a lifetime of sadness that has occurred during that time. However, his two children seem to have survived the tragedies that unfolded around them during these years and are now flourishing. Ray would have been so proud of them both.
I published a poetry collection in 2019 entitled Cemetery Road dealing with his death and with death generally (https://tinyurl.com/muxk95hb). One of the poems in this collection is called Photo of You in a Manhattan Café . I wrote it in 2017, two years after his death, and am including it here.
And on this day,
the second anniversary
Of your untimely
death
A long-buried
photo of you surfaced
Causing me to
catch my breath
We had met for
lunch in some downtown Manhattan café
That you
frequented—eager to share with me your find
Proud that you
were working there in that melee
Of New Yorkers
milling about with their own kind
The contours of
your face, your photogenic smile
Your youth that
emanates from a decade ago
Your furtive
smile, the one that could beguile
And persuade the
most stubborn of us so
Your hidden
secrets that remained unearthed
You did not give
them willingly away
And those of us
who tried to probe and came away
Unenlightened
frustrated rather gone astray
If walls could
talk, and photos likewise
Perhaps you would
still walk upon this earth
And smile your
stealthy smile for all to know
That happiness was
yours, there was no dearth
