What I learned from my mother is
Rationality, Kindness, Dedication
A friendly hello and a
Temporary goodbye
How to stay together
When the world is falling apart
Responsibility and wisdom
How to know my next move
You can’t please everybody
And not everyone is going to get it
Don’t give up
I can do it
But most of all,
What I learned from my mother is
That she’ll always be there for
me
BY JULIA KASDORF
I learned from my
mother how to love
the living, to have
plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to
rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from
the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the
buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold
fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to
cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice
through maroon grape skins
and flick out the
sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend
viewings even if I didn’t know
the deceased, to press
the moist hands
of the living, to look
in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I
understood loss even then.
I learned that
whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will
remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I
had the power to ease
awful pains materially
like an angel.
Like a doctor, I
learned to create
from another’s
suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do
this, you can never refuse.
To every house you
enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate
cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your
voice, your chaste touch.
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