This is How I Remember

This is how I remember you,
dancing with your love to soft jazz,
your soft  yellow dress flowing around you
in the ballroom of the Hotel Roanoke,
suddenly young again,
a reminder of what you were at your most true.

This is what I remember,
open arms instead of suspicion.
Quiet risks.
Resilience.
Love of the children in your life.
Love at times, hard for you to express
but as you aged, it leaked through
your convictions, your Victorian upbringing,
and showed itself in a tenderness
few would have expected.

When we traveled, nineteen forties jazz on the radio,
you would talk like a young woman,
romance with Homer, of children and a simple belief
that life went on.

And it did, through accidents, loss, cancer, it went on,
even as you began to fade,
as, one, by one, the grey cells turned out their lights,
something essential remained

Until, today, it did not.

We mourn.
We rejoice.
but mostly,
we celebrate

This is what I remember
as you dance once again
with your love.

About this poem. 

My mother in law, Anne Duty, died last night. I guess you would call her my ex-mother-in-law. But she has always been precious to me, and still is, and always will be.

Tom