Ingrid reached out to us to share this beautiful poem that she wrote for her mum’s 62nd birthday. It is an honour to be able to share such heartfelt and personal pieces such as this one on our blog. It gives us such hope and a sense of community to connect with you all through grief.

Thank you Ingrid, and thank you to everyone who allows us to share their posts about grief. Make sure you go on over to Ingrid’s blog to check out the rest of her content, and please let us know via email or our “contact us page” if you’d like to share something about grief on our blog. Everyone grieves and here at The Grief Reality, we want to normalise the conversation.

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Poem on Your Birthday

This poem is dedicated to my mother, Elizabeth, who died aged 32. Today would have been her 62nd birthday. It’s also dedicated to all those who knew and loved her, and to my children who she never got the chance to meet. The loss of my mother also inspired The Tide which could be read as a companion piece.

I remember
The coolness of your skin, and your warm heart
The thickness of your hair, and your thin body
Seemed like the wind could blow right through you
Which it did
It blows through me, too though
It won’t blow me over

I remember
You waiting for me in the school yard
My favourite time of day
And the days you didn’t come
The worst
And the one day you would never come again
A nightmare

Still, in time there are wild flowers again
And sunny days
There is new life, new love
And still the old, which never left
It’s blowing in the wind
Which blows through you
And blows through all things, but cannot destroy
Our love

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