In that gap between start and end,
we try to spend all that time living.
And if we can’t, we always pretend.
And we try to be giving and forgiving.
But humans and humanity have failed,
in this noble struggle, we get derailed.
With this dreadful grief thrust upon me
by siblings I have mistaken for family.
It’s never the years we lived,
but how we lived our years.
I have never cried nor stopped to love
my mother, and never failed to shed tears.
Let’s celebrate this auspicious occasion
as we relive my Nanay’s life well-lived.
I am and will always be the youngest son,
who will outlive her life that was long-lived.
Loss has managed to teach us all this:
each of us, we have to deal with grief alone.
But grieve, we all must go through, amid
the unbearable pain of loss, on our own.
Over 50 of my years never too far,
leaving the proverbial umbilical cord intact.
Giving me much to write about in my memoir,
no matter how fabulous, inaccurate or inexact.
I have lived well, my Nanay has lived long.
525,600 minutes, like the song?
Age is not about the years, days, or hours;
but mere moments in this goddam life of ours.
History is known to be written by the victors,
or in this case by the one who is left behind.
Not like that Jew, the one married to my sister;
or that preachy one, or that stupid one, or that sister.
This now, my lifelong pursuit, to ensure all will see;
that my Nanay’s dying wish is to be with me.
And to ensure history’s wholly inaccurate depictings
of what useless lives were lived by my siblings.
Copyright Donato R. Vytiaco © 2024 #donvy
