Consolatio

The Child's Death

He did but float a little way
adown the stream of time;
with dreamy eyes watching the ripples play,
or listening to their chime.
His slender sail
scarce felt the gale;
he did but float a little way,
and, putting to the shore,
while yet 'twas early day,
went calmly on his way,
to dwell with us no more.
No jarring did he feel,
no grating on his vessel's keel;
a strip of yellow sand
mingled the waters with the land,
where he was seen no more;
O stern word, Nevermore!
Full short his journey was; no dust
of earth unto his sandals clave;
the weary weight, that old men must,
he bore not to his grave.
He seemed a cherub who had lost his way
and wandered hither; so his stay
with us was short; and 'twas most meet
that he should be no delver in earth's clod,
nor need to pause and cleanse his feet
to stand before his God.

--Anonymous. Poem in The Children's Anthology (1941), ed. William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943)

Federico García Lorca: The Ghazal of the Dead Child

Every evening in Granada,
every evening a child dies.
Every evening the water sits down
to converse with its friends.

The dead wear wings of moss.
The cloudy wind and the clean wind
are two pheasants who fly by the towers
and the day is a wounded boy.

Not a sliver of lark was left in the air
when I met you by the caves of wine
not a crumb of cloud was left in the sky
when you drowned in the river.

A giant of water fell over the mountains
and the valley was whirling with dogs and irises.
Your body, with the dark purple of my hands,
was, dead on the pillow, an archangel of cold.

        --Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)

 Todas las tardes en Granada,
todas las tardes se muere un niño.
Todas las tardes el agua se sienta
a conversar con sus amigos.

Los muertos llevan alas de musgo.
El viento nublado y el viento limpio
son dos faisanes que vuelan por las torres
y el día es un muchacho herido.

No quedaba en el aire ni una brizna de alondra
cuando yo te encontré por las grutas del vino
No quedaba en la tierra ni una miga de nube
cuando te ahogabas por el río.

Un gigante de agua cayó sobre los montes
y el valle fue rodando con perros y con lirios.
Tu cuerpo, con la sombra violeta de mis manos,
era, muerto en la orilla, un arcángel de frío.

 

William Cullen Bryant: Life's bright promise withdrawn

I grieve for life's bright promise, just shown and then withdrawn.

     --William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) in "Waiting by the Gate," Thirty Poems (1864)

Our family chain is broken

Our family chain is broken, and nothing seems the same;
but as God calls us one by one the chain will link again.

              --Ron Tranmer 

The poem is copyrighted. Please see the author's website (name is linked).

The author of the poem writes: 

I am the author of the above, "Our Family Chain Is Broken." Here is the full poem: 

We little knew the day that God
was going to call your name.
In life we loved you dearly,
in death we do the same.

It broke our hearts to lose you.
You did not go alone,
For part of us went with you
The day God called you home.

You left us peaceful memories.
Your love is still our guide,
And though we cannot see you
You are always at our side.

Our family chain is broken
and nothing seems the same,
but as God calls us one by one
the chain will link again.

I wrote it for a young woman in our family several years ago. Copies were passed out among the family. I hope it can bring comfort to others who grieve.

--Ron Tranmer

When something terrible happens, you discover a new set of relatives

 

It's a sort of kinship, is all I can say, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens, you discover all of a sudden that you have a new set of relatives, people with whom you can speak in the shorthand of cousins.

       --[From Sedulia: I am not sure this attribution is correct. Please help if you can]-- Joan Wickersham (1957-), in The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order (pub. 2008)

Walt Whitman's nephew died young

In the middle of the room, in its white coffin, lay the dead child, the nephew of the poet. Near it, in a great chair, sat Walt Whitman, surrounded by little ones, and holding a beautiful little girl on his lap. She looked wonderingly at the spectacle of death, and then inquiringly into the old man's face. 'You don't know what it is, do you, my dear?' said he, and added, 'We don't, either.'

         --Mary Mapes Dodge (1831-1905), a friend of poet Walt Whitman's, in the preface to a poem.

Netta Wilson: I lost my child today

I lost my child today
People came to weep and cry
as I just sat and stared, dry eyed
They struggled to find words to say
to try and make the pain go away
I walked the floor in disbelief
I lost my child today.

I lost my child last month
Most of the people went away
Some still call and some still stay
I wait to wake up from this dream
This can't be real, I want to scream
Yet everything is locked inside
God, help me, I want to die
I lost my child last month.

I lost my child last year
Now people who had came, have gone
I sit and struggle all day long
to bear the pain so deep inside
And now my friends just question Why?
Why does this mother not move on?
Just sits and sings the same old song
Good heavens, it has been so long
I lost my child last year.

Time has not moved on for me
The numbness it has disappeared
My eyes have now cried many tears
I see the look upon your face
"She must move on and leave this place"
Yet I am trapped right here in time
The song’s the same, as is the rhyme
I lost my child.........today

        --Netta Wilson, written in memory of her daughter Caprice Cara Wilson, who was killed in an auto accident (December 2, 1968 - November 20, 1994). Printed in the newsletter of The Compassionate Friends, Atlanta, May-June 2001

If you know how to reach Netta Wilson, please let me know. Netta Wilson wrote in herself, below. She died on September 2, 2011.

 

Robert Lowell: "When they first showed me the boy, I thought oh good, it's not him"

Identification in Belfast

IRA bombing

..."When they first showed me the boy, I thought oh good,
it's not him because he is a blonde--
I imagine his hair was singed dark by the bomb.
He had nothing on him to identify him
except this box of joke trick matches;
he liked to have them on him, even at mass.
The police were unhurried and wonderful,
they let me go on trying to strike a match...
I just wouldn't stop-- you cling to anything--
I couldn't believe I couldn't light one match--
only joke-matches...Then I knew he was Richard."

   --Robert Lowell (1917-1977)

Susan Whitmore: You're never going to have your normal life back, but it doesn't mean it won't be a good life

[Susan Whitmore lost her only child, Erika, in 2002.  She set up a foundation for other grieving parents.] 

Grieving... is a life-long process...."You have to create a lot of new memories over a long time without that child," she explains, "so that you can rebuild your life....You're never going to have your normal life back, but it doesn't mean it won't be a good life. It will be a different life, a new life."

   --From an article by Katie Grim in Westside Today, December 2007

David Grossman: It's like hell in slow motion, all the time

It's a painful life, now. It's like hell in slow motion, all the time. I don't try to escape grief. I face grief in an intense way in my writing, but not only in my writing. If I have to suffer, I want to understand my situation thoroughly. It's not an easy place to be, but so be it. If I'm doomed to it, I want-- it's a human predicament, and I want to experience it....

Anything that is calm and safe seems to me like an illusion.

            --David Grossman (1954- ), Israeli novelist, in an interview with Jonathan Shainin in the Paris Review, Fall 2007. His youngest son, Uri, was killed in August 2006 during the Israeli offensive in Lebanon.