Memorial Letter (Falling Water)

In this eleventh year after Timm's passing

Mary and Bill—his parents and mine—both

joined him in the freedom and fate of oblivion.

Both went as far as they could then faded,

dying not alone as their son but surrounded

by what family remains. Brother Will was

at Columcille in Pennsylvania last June

when Dad died in his beloved home, his

gut given out at age 92. Will held his hand

and told Dad he loved him while friends

sang carols and his dog Loch crossed paws

laying by his feet. Mom passed in a hospice ward

this past February, dying of an inoperable split

in her bowel; sister Molly and I spent many

hours taking shifts with her, as well as Molly's

daughters who loved Grammy so; in the

last days Will flew down to say goodbye

and it was grace we all had time to sit

with her as she slowly quieted then stilled.

Now our nuclear family is halved cleanly

between the living and gone, Timm no longer

alone in the beyond but there with the parents

who were so difficult for him in life,

who loved him desperately after he died,

who came to this memorial as its most faithful,

perhaps only readers, yearning for the son who

lived out his last years apart and mostly alone.

All gone now: So there's less reason now

to keep posting these annual farewells,

subject and readers both beyond words,

equal part of diviner thirds to the living ...

I don't see the three of them walking together,

not now or ever, but they do seem to share

the same singing, the same hazy waterfall

like the one in the big picture I took down

from Mom's wall while closing her house.

Timm took it back in '05 or so, savoring

its rush of pure grandeur and grace,

a hint of eternity in some local place.

That's how I remember him, out there

far away, walking a few paces off but

still close to Bill and Mary in the family

way their surviving brothers and sister

will try to hold like a still place within

where everything cascades but still pools.

A growing, distant, jeweling presence.

A farewell that keeps adding to wells

within and without, behind and ahead.

A grief which swings the heart's bells

for better and worse for our dead.

    -- Fare thee well, Timm, Mom, Dad.

Mother with Timm after he was born in 1963.

Mother beneath a beloved tabebouia tree last Spring.

Dad and Timm in 1981.

Dad passing, June 2018.

Timm, Mom, Molly, 1969.

Mom and Molly next to Timm's tabebouia and memorial stone, 4/18/16. 

Molly and Will with Mom as she passes, Feb. 2019.

Dad and Tim, 1966.

Timm and Dad as rough riders, 1975.

David, Dad and Timm at Molly's wedding in 1988.

Dad leading a procession at Columcille, 2014.

Will interring Dad's ashes, June 2018.

Timm and Molly, 1964.

Timm adventuring, 1964.

Birthday pool party for Timm, 1971.

Timm celebrate's Mom's birthday in 1980.

Timm adventuring, 1985. 

Timm adventuring, 2007.

Loch in the Columcille chapel.

Mom's beach chair by the sea.

Timm's waterfall.

Timm.