A Melancholy Remembrance

Those of you who have read my poem “What Is Love?” have seen the poem in this story already. However, I thought I’d tell the story of where that poem came from and an associated picture that spawned it. The picture above I took at the cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia three years ago. I edited it for the filter you can see applied below:

Back in 2021 my wife, Emily, and I visited my maternal grandfather in Atlanta, Georgia. At this time he was eighty-five years old and not in the best of health. My grandmother, Ola Mae Haney, had passed a few months earlier at the age of 83. Thankfully her passing had been ‘peaceful’ - if such the end of any human life may be called. My grandfather, Benjamin Charley Marcus James Haney (I kid you not and I’m sure you can see why he went by B. J.) was devastated. Being already frail in his old age, the loss of the love of his life was a blow from which he never recovered.

My grandparents were married for sixty-three years and had six children - My Uncle Griffin, Uncle Danny, Uncle Donald, Aunt Audrey, Aunt Nancy, and, of course my mother - Alice Faye Haney-McDonald. There are a slew of grandchildren (myself amongst them) and great grandchildren in that tale for another time.

While my grandad B.J. was a tad over six feet, my grandmother was all of 4’11” tall and an absolute spitfire. That woman was a powerhouse of energy, love, and charisma. Everyone loved her, myself included. But nobody ever loved another human being the way Grandaddy B.J. loved that woman. Ola Mae only came up to her husband’s shoulder and what a sight the two made together. The six foot tall dynamic man and his tiny winsome wife. Still, as I said, don’t let her size throw you. I have seen that little woman stand up to the police, other mothers, bulldogs, and entire neighborhoods… All of whom backed down before the tiny terror that was my Grandma Ola.

Regardless, on this visit to Atlanta we were there on my grandmother’s birthday. My grandfather was depressed as the thought weighed heavily on his mind. His loneliness was palpable in every gesture, look, or move he made. It was actually painful to see. The tears he was holding back my heart shed on his behalf. All things being equal, in that my grandfather no longer drove, I offered to take him to the cemetery where my grandmother was laid to rest. This offer was met with an actual smile that did both he and I a world of good.

At the cemetery I watched as my once robust and dynamic grandfather approached the gravesite of the woman who had been his very breath, his partner, his center. She had been his soulmate, the center of his universe. Ola Mae Haney had been his very reason extant for living. All who knew my grandparents knew this … They also knew that her passing was a mortal blow for this wonderful man.

As my grandfather placed flowers on the gravesite and dusted off the tombstone, I took some photos of the cemetery. It is unfortunate that I cannot locate the one of him kneeling there, head bowed, crying, as he weeded the grass over the site wherein his universe was buried under six feet of dirt. It was a gut wrenching experience for me. But, also, an affirming one. It affirmed the reality of True Forever Love. The type of love that continues not only till death do us part, but long after. The type I still share after thirty-nine years of marriage to my own beautiful bride - but this is B. J.’s story.

I talked with my grandfather for a while at that quiet cemetery while looking at my grandmother’s final resting place; listening to tales of their lives to which I had not before been privy. Tales of love and laughter. Tales of heartache, hard times and regrets. Theirs was a different time… not better, not worse, just different. They had been poor in the material sense but wealthy beyond imagination in the ways that most truly mattered.

When we returned to the house, my grandfather took a nap. I watched him sleep for a few minutes before heading to the kitchen, Digging out pen and paper I penned the below poem in honor of my maternal grandfather’s strength, resilience, and the shining love he still exuded for the woman with whom he had shared a lifetime.

…..

Love.

What is it?

Is it heart rending… agonizing?

At times…. But not always

Love…

Is it painful, traumatic, and debilitating?

Indeed it can be… Sometimes…

😔😔😔🫀😔😔😔

Sometimes, in the small hours

As wisps of shadows dance on the bed

Where your very essence, your reason extant

Centerpiece of your eternal soul

Once, but no more, lay beside you

On this once joyfully shared bed

Whereupon scent of her flowery perfume lingers

A pillow-case brushed, coated dreamily

Sautéed in wistful oils by her creamy, lucious skin…

This you still have

Olfactory ghosts to haunt your sleep…

Yet I love them

These haunts of yesterday

🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵💀🎵🎶🎵🎶🎵🎶

Sometimes in the wee small hours

Tears of joy, tears of pain…, loss…, heartbreak

Spice the palette of your broken, overdone heart

With salty brine

A feast for those who enjoy their repast

Salted with regrets….

And yet…

💗🎶❤️

What is love?

Love is a joyous sharing

A mingling of soul..

A mingling of minds, hearts, bodies, desires

A sharing of dreams

Dreams of a future unending

Spent walking hand in hand with this radiant

Shimmeringly beauteous being

From a realm beyond mortal

Daydreams of a future lost in shared ecstasy

Lost within each other

Sharing every thought, every whim, every wish

With the one who truly completes you

❤️🎶❤️🎶❤️

Love is all

Love is the final completing touch

Placed tenderly

By Aphrodite’s chef extraordinaire

It is the topping on a wedding cake

It is tenderly brushing

Back an errant lock of escaped wind blown hair

It is lightly stroking her cheek

Grazing perfection far beyond

Any masterpiece of art

Hung in the Louvre

Or painted on the Cistine Chapel

🫀🫀🫀🫀💗💗💗🫀🫀🫀

Love is breathing in the wonder

Of life itself

Every time you hear that voice

Every time you see that face

Knowing you would rather die

Die a horrific, agonized death

Than live without her for a single day

💀💕💗💕💀

Love is an ending

Ending of solitary confinement

End of searching for fulfillment

Escape from the prison of

Our lonely, human condition

The final scene of all that came before

Curtain raised on a new, wondrous journey

As our solo tragic drama

Sets scene for a joyous new story

A duet puppeteered by cosmic forces

As Act II begins

Wherein two lost, forlorn seekers

Stumble into a calm oasis

Ablaze with new morning light

Chorus of whippoorwills

Accompanied by sparrows, chickadees, cicadas

Watched from above by creatures

Creatures great and small

Watch from hidden crawl spaces

Watch with baited breath

Hoping against hope to bear witness

Witness to perfection aborning

🐾🐾🙈🦥🦟🦗🦅🐍🐇🦦🐾🐾

What is love?

Love is joy

Love is pain

Love is sorrow

Love is ecstasy

Reason

Insanity

Love is ….Creation ….

And final Dissolution

……./\……

Love is…

ALL

Alfred Tennyson said it perhaps best….

“Better to have loved and lost

Than never to have loved at all”

**********************

Now please excuse me

My lost love I seek

Once more to be complete…

After each act…

An end

After each end a beginning

Farewell.

…..

Two and a half weeks later my grandfather, Benjamin Charley Marcus James Haney slipped away quietly in his sleep. When I found him there was a winsome smile on his face. I cried. I cried long and hard. Still, I was also glad that my wonderful grandfather - a guidepost of my own life - was now reunited with her. That smile said it all. I know that they are together in the afterlife - laughing, smiling, holding hands and just being themselves…, together…, forever.

I love you both. May you be reunited, resting peacefully in each other’s arms in joy and bliss above. I shall see you both again. On that day I expect a hug and a smile from a four foot eleven inch spitfire of a spirit and a clap on the shoulder from a smiling six foot pillar of strength.