A Decade and a Year

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.

Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Gibran was right.  Love is the cruelest gift some of us receive. Yet I love you. I look at your portraits every day as they adorn my room’s walls. I always took them in Black & White, yet what I see are your hazel eyes.

…I saw this bass when I was walking our dog. (You did not meet Rocky. He is the puppy who came to us soon after you left. He is 12 years old now, blind in one eye and eager to sleep through the days.) I thought about you. The bass was silent. Yet it rested peacefully, perhaps because it had already played its own requiem.  With restful harmony.

Your twin brother will turn 23 years old in a couple of days. You will always be the 12 year old girl who even with her last breath said “Dad, do not worry – I can deal with it.”

These words still haunt me.

July 6, 2016

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2016