Only three years old when it happened,
 my mind is fuzzy.
 But fragments land in my lap when I’m 
 sat at my desk or driving late at night. 
  
 We formed a stronger relationship then-
 the first three years of a life full of promise-
 than with many of those I have once 
 called my best friends.
 We spoke the language of 
 music to each other.
 I was learning; he was fluent. 
 Even now you can 
 play me Duke Ellington’s 
 In A Sentimental Mood or 
 Debussy’s Clare de Lune and 
 watch a stillness overcome me.
 This is his way of asking how I am. 
  
 Mum would tell me of
 her own memories;
 a youth spent with 
 legs crossed, watching proudly from the floor 
 as her father made the music 
 I only dream of.
 A pint fused a ring into the 
 wood of the piano as he 
 pretended to read the music
 virtuosos work so hard to know by heart.
 He’d be surrounded by a smoke 
 that danced freely on the ceiling, 
 like clouds before a storm, yet
 the only rain in that room is the 
 reign of my grandfather’s talent.  
  
 I could talk about the funeral, 
 though hazy,
 or the hole that never quite heals.
 The gap that age three, four, 
 Seven, eight, fifty, year old me 
 tries to understand.
 I only saw the emptiness, 
 the gaping silent space. 
 It was not until I held the sides
 that I noticed the shape it took- 
 the shape of a man so full of laughter, 
 it would be a sin to think of 
 anything other than 
 joy.  

Thoughts.

The first poem a new writer shows their family or loved ones can be, and was to me, quite a big deal. Somehow this poem was the one I was most comfortable sharing. I only say ‘somehow’ as it comes from one of the realest places a poem has come from for me so far. I have been lucky enough to share time with all four of my grandparents (and am still sharing time with my wonderful grandmother) throughout my life, and each memory I have with each one of them is so precious. Naturally, it was through the university’s need for an assignment that this particular expression of memory came about, and as it was to be centred around childhood, I figured my earliest memory of loss was one of the most authentic takes. It comes from a perspective of naivety at the time, but shows how this can shift with age. I drew on the things my mother had told me and the thoughts I had had regarding my grandfather over the past 16 years.

After plucking up the courage to read/send the poem to various close family members and hearing the reception it got, I gained confidence that I didn’t realise I was so lacking in. Everyone has experienced or will experience some kind of grief in their life, be it with family members or friends, the end of a life or heart break. It’s the single most human thing in my opinion, as the only certainty that we have is the certainty that life as we know it will not continue forever. It is very easy to shy away from this thought, or fear it, but it can be the thing that unites us as a race as well. To be able to make others feel the way I felt when writing this piece is something I will never take for granted, as to me, it draws on fundamental human nature and reminds whoever reads it that we are all quite similar really.