My Beloved Grandmother

Oh, so many tears
Had I shed for the dead
That mortality's threat
No more made me fear
But at one type of death
Became I short of breath:
The death of one who made so much of life
That others would choose to share in her strife.

The undeserved death of a beautiful Soul
Pushed my heart and my mind down a sizable hole.
The death of one is the death of another;
For die that day did both a Wife and a Mother.
My Hope and my Faith did that hole's darkness smother,
And all I could do was to blither and bluther,
         That pit the epitome of a wholly black hole.
         That something so holy was so swallowed up whole.

Then forth from the darkness came what a bright light!
That it broke the thick veil of the heavy black night
Said she to me, my beloved Grandmother,
"Command to be still your frantic heart, Brother,
Still it is yours, it is yours and no other's.
And remember me not for the blistering bother
of pestilence, no, but for reason another.
Recall me as Guide, Daughter, Wife, Friend, and Mother.
And to yourself please remember me again and another:
your sister in Faith and beloved Grandmother."