Writings shared from Mazal, member of The Mending Word: Parent, Child, and Sibling Loss Sesries

Prompt:
Unfinished Symphonies

Define absence for me

Its the state of lacking

Or it can be the state of being away from someone

At times it can be replaced for distance

The feeling of missing

But your absence doesn't quite fit

With either terms

If you lack in one thing

Then the void can always be replaced

But this one can't 

And the state of being away

Means you'll see them again

There's hope there

But you never will

It pains me to remember 

Your presence in my life

Not just the hard truthful memories

But also the late night heart-to-heart conversations

Your absence can be felt during my milestones

And in the quiet corridors of the apartment

No more yelling or loud motivational speeches

I kind of miss those

All of the memories 

As time goes on

I tell more and more people

Of the kind of relationship we shared

To me you weren't just my father

You supported me and trusted me

Always stating, "She has a feeling"

Telling me to go for my passions in life

No matter how far fetched they seemed

Other times

We would disagree

And as they usually go

Involving a lot of yelling

And anger steaming from both parties

You never would apologize since you were never wrong

But you did to me

You put your stubbornness and pride aside

To try to understand

Spending a day in my shoes and me in yours

How I would stay up at night

Just to wish you "good night" before bed

What I would do now for one of those hugs

Especially when I needed the extra support and strength

To laugh one last time

At your horrendous dad jokes

Or go on our late night jogs

You introduced me to rock and classical music

Along with your passion for reading

Even when I would read under the table

You still never said anything

Our relationship was tough yet comforting

So similar although from two different timelines

I guess that's where I get it from

My passions, my insights, my perseverance 

I'm a hopeless romantic 

And often times called an "old soul"

I blame you for that

For showing me the old fashioned movies

And making me fall in love with that traditional lifestyle

It pains me that you won't be around

For my wedding

To see me flourish

To become the person I'm growing to be

So much unfinished business

I wish I called more

And opened up sooner

But at the same time I don't

I got my chance

Unlike the rest of my siblings

I got time to speak to you

And resolve old traumas 

You gave me that closure

But your absence is still felt

It lingers in my lowest of lows

And highest of highs

To shooting whiskey on a bad day

And running off to my endless adventures

I take your memories with me

So although you're gone

I can still feel your presence when needed

• Mazal Yakubov

Writings shared from Michal, member of an in person session of The Mending Word. Prompt:
Unfinished Symphonies

Our symphony was complicated - a thread built on both trust and fear, constantly pulling on both ends. Growing up, I put all my trust in him - he was my protector, my father, my constant pillar of strength. I feared him, respected him, and sometimes even hated him. As the world got smaller, condensed into hospitals, illness, and looming death, the thread was twisted and re-knotted. Suddenly, he put his trust in me. And my fear of him - once so strong and big, turned smaller until it evaporated. I saw him crumble and fall. I saw his whole life stretched out before him, I watched it play in his eyes, in his tears that I caught. I saw the challenges and the unfinished desires - mainly, to live, just a little longer. I feel like I was finally starting to catch up with him, to catch up with our relationship. We stopped fighting so often, we hung out more in one year than probably in my entire life. I was finally growing up - his baby. And I wanted him to see me, as an adult, as a future wife, as a future mom. And then, in what now seems like a blink of an eye, our thread was cut. Torn. ripped at the seams, not beautifully, but harshly, in a cruel manner. I was 23 years old, and I no longer had a father. Or a mother. Our symphony was finished, and I was lost. Stuck navigating this new life I was thrown into made me feel like a child all over again. And the irony of it all is that I am no longer and will never again be a child.

Both of my parents led beautiful, full lives. Their stories were cut short but no one can doubt the beautiful chapters in between. They’re now the pillars of my everything, something I never even realized while they were alive. Funny how that works. Or, not actually funny at all. The way death makes you realize how you had the best all along. And suddenly, they’re all encompassing. Once two external figures, they now guide and direct my every move, they’re the thought behind every action. They're dead, and yet somehow, they’ve never left me. If anything they've become more ingrained within me than when they were actually alive. I used to have words and touch to be with them and now all I have is my heart. My mother told me, a few days before she died, that she’ll always be with me, in my heart. At the time I rolled my eyes at her. But now I know that, as always, she was right.

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Writing shared from anonymous member of an in person session of The Mending Word.
Prompt: Unfinished Symphonies

Your proper ending would have been far in the future.

Now that I’m grown, I would have learned to understand you better. And I would have learned from you.

There are too many questions I have that have gone unanswered. Too many things we never did together.

You always wanted to come see where I lived, but I always lived kind of far. You’d say “I would love to see your home one day.” I wish you were here to see it now. It has all the things you would have loved! A big deck, a swimming pool and trees everywhere. It’s the oasis from the city you always wanted.

I have a dog now and she’s the cutest button ever. I look at that picture of you smiling with a friend’s dog and think of how much you would have spoiled her.

A walk with you would be everything to me. A walk with you, me, and my puppy june would be the world.

I wish you could see me now. I was so broken when we said goodbye - I didn’t think I could ever recover from that.

But here I am. I think about you often - but I am able to compartmentalize.

You live in my mind and show up throughout my day in the beautiful moments. But I no longer cry every day. And I have been able to stop harboring most of my anger at the doctors and the world and most of all myself.

I can go through life now with you in my heart and you make my life so much more full.

I know what love - tru unconditional love - is supposed to feel like because of you. I’ll miss you every single day for eternity.

Every big moment. Every job promotion, new child in the family, wedding, and bar mitzvah I’ll cry wishing you were here.

But I can now live and love life despite the distance death has put between us. I imagine what you’d say or do. When I see beauty, I think of you. When I’m wearing a pretty dress, I think of you. When I feel lonely, I think of you.

As a young person I can’t say I thought of you this much. The way it’s supposed to work is that I push you away as a teenager, and come back to you in my twenties.

I’m ready to come back to you now and you’re just gone. But that’s why I need to hold you close and why I think of you every day.

I look around and see others in my life talk to their mothers, telling them about mundane things and I wish I had that with you or could have it now. I know you would want me to believe you’re with me now in spirit, so I try to. But it’s been a few years and you feel more like a memory, than someone I used to hug super duper tight.

I wish I could go visit you at the house - hear your sweet voice. Sink myself into your amazing embrace, and then offload my soul onto you.

I know we would have shared everything if you were still here. I know you would love me no matter what and that you’d tell me I’ll be ok.

I want to go with you to Disneyland. Or any places families go together. We never really got to have that all American family vacation. I want to see you be happy and smiling.

I wish I could take you on a road trip - like that time you drove me to Sedona and had the best time I have a big white car now - we could take a cooler with us and drive wherever you want. we’d go on hikes and adventures together, spotting pretty birds and talking about life. You would be here and you would be happy.

I wish I could go back in time to when you told me you were afraid - that the medicine wasn’t working and you thought it was the end. I wish now that it was the current version of myself that had been sitting with you in that hospital room that day. I would do it all so differently.

I’d hold you and tell you that no matter what happened I’d be with you through it. I’d tell you that I would quit my job the next day, move in with you and take care of you. But I was naive. I didn’t learn enough about what was killing you to know that it certainly would.

I didn’t think that you would die. I really just didn’t. It was hard for me to see you crying and so the little girl in me, told me you would get better. That you’d find a better treatment again and it would be ok.

But it wasn’t and I was wrong.

I don’t like dwelling on the past, but I know about our future. I’m going to make sure everyone who knows me, heard about you. That my kids know their Bubbe, and that I our family honors your memory. I’ll keep writing to you in case there’s a heaven and they ever let me in. Wouldn’t wanna be the type of daughter who never writes home.

And Ma, I’ll keep loving and missing you forever. I’ll hold you near and dear and take you with me always.