Call Me Grace


I don't wear it like a dress-
This death
Though of me
It isn't mine.
Don't call me "widow"
As if I wore death as a sheath
The "widowed"!
The bereft
Rift!
The rift between the living and the had lived.
The stiffened mournful faces
The sorrowful embarrassed look
Distant gloomy
Bereft.
Berift
The rift, if there is one
Is between me and him
Not between me and you!

O, close the rift!
I am still among the living.
Burnt with my husband
I am not!
Close the rift
Put me back among the living
Where I belong -
Am!

Call me not "widow"
Call me Grace!


They Don't Let Me Forget
I'm almost eighty
Seventy-nine to be exact
Very well - All is well
Not even the usual female complaints
My back doesn't ache
My feet take me wherever I want to go
I even wear high heels to weddings
I can still help the grandchildren
With their English homework.
Although my eyesight
Isn't as good as it used to be
I drive my car with elan
And feel superior to the new
Grandchildren drivers
I hardly ever think
Of being nearly eighty
If only other people wouldn't remind me!

"Isn't she wonderful," they say
"Stands so straight!"
Am I supposed to be bent double?
"Can out-walk us"
Not quite true!

I know it's all meant well
But
This flaunting
This patronizing youngness
As if they're immune
From the days
When either
They will be going to their
Friends' funerals
Or their friends will be coming to theirs.
Such conceit
It gets my goat!

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Learn more about the author Grace Hollander

This material is ©1998 by Grace Hollander
3 Keren Haysod st,Ramat Ilan, Givat Shmuel, Israel 51905

Permission to distribute this material, with this notice is granted - with request to notify of use by surface mail
or at gracehollander@usa.net.