March 12, 2004
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Foundations
We are but piles of stone
Quarried from small secrets
Stacked and fitted
Some dense and strong
Others porous and weak
Each moment, each person
Fitting in place to make me who I am
Stumbling when weak, weathered stone crumbles
Resting on strong foundations
Mourning when they are gone
One of the experiences that one has in the middle age years is losing the people of your youth. The ones who made up the substance of your world. The grandparents, parents, teachers and aunts and uncles who, by simply being there, created the reality of your world. Without being aware, this is the reality by which you weigh the world for the rest of your life. This influence may thin over time, replaced partially by the pounding of adult life, but always there. My experience when one of these people die, is a very real sense that my foundation, my very self is shaken. I was very fortunate to have as part of my youth and early adulthood, an aunt, who created for me a very real sense of goodness, love, and dedication to values and family. She is elderly now, but very much alive and newly diagnosed with a deadly cancer. We have not lost her yet, but my heart quivers as I feel the waves pound against the stone.
Comments (5)
No words.
~Paloma
Very thoughtful and poetic. I came here through Zangazine. I like what I see.
I am so very sorry about your aunt.
I have (amazingly) yet to experience that crumbling of the foundation in any particularly near sense, although I do remember, vividly, hearing of the death of my childhood next-door neighbor, and how powerfully, and surprisingly, devastating that news was.
I wonder if there are other metaphors for the experience; perhas using your seaside reference: stones being swept in and swept out again. For even with your forboding about the “swept-out,” just this weekend another has been “swept in,” eh? Not that such events can ever be seen as a quid-pro-quo, or even related, but maybe seeing them as a part of a cycle of destruction and rebirth is another way to come to terms with them.
Regardless, the coming-to-terms part is the tough thing, metaphor or no metaphor.
…and congratulations on the ‘Zine!
I relate to this analogy with fervency. I have lost the most foundational ‘stone’ of my life with the loss of my mother about a year and a half ago. There have been many who have provided foundational blocks upon which I stand, somewhat firmly (no detriment to their teachings or ways of life, rather to my own choices that sway away from what they may have lived out before me).
I hope I am a firm foundational stone for those in my life who choose to build upon my principle values, ‘dense and strong’ as your poem put it. I feel we all have a responsibility to those around us to at least live out the values that we state we believe to be true, or right. I wouldn’t list them as to expect them to be everyone’s values, but I would say, if we really believe in them, we should show that belief rather than just speak it.
Very good post and about your being a new grandfather, welcome to the club!!! There’s nothing like them.
Pics?? 
Deb