poem

 A.I Obits

Hands steady on the helm of the family vessel christened Massie, the recently deceased captain we knew as Gerald or Jerry or Dad or PoePa guided us all to the brink of his own demise. Whether working in the garden pulling flowers or tending to his official Post Office duties before retirement after 30 deliverable years he was always a smiling face in the mean face of storms and adversity. Sometimes when we look at the sky the sun is so bright it inflames your eyes. And sometimes it’s just tears that he is gone. Please note the hearing in probate court has been announced if you are interested in finding out who receives the collection of laminated Marvel comic books. See also the county website for times and directions to free parking. But his greatest legacy will be the chicken marsala recipe he forgot to write down but was watched enough times to remember.  

Although death is the final frontier, Conrad always enjoyed a good cruise, especially the all-inclusive ones that disembarked from Fort Lauderdale, state of Florida in 1988, pictures of which can still be seen on the mantle of the house in Lodi where his late wife still clings to the last branches of her tree of life. Those pictures are in a box now and if you want to see them in lieu of sending flowers please send a donation to Meandering Lanes Memory Care Unit where his widowed wife will soon be going. To this day she still enjoys a good practical joke. The crinkling at the corners of her rheumy eyes. She won't believe that he’s gone until he drops the punch line and laughter can also be a robust source of tears. 

Survived by wife (Jeanne) survived by (son) Steve. Survived by Manny (trusted handyman) Preceded in death by the vast majority of all living beings. Survived by pets (Corsair and Coriolanus) Survived by everything he’s left behind (polo shirts, poems, concert ticket stubs). Survived by what he should have taken with him (Sheila’s resentment, Bob’s jealousy, his Topps baseball card collection). Survived by his three most redeeming characteristics, as per the calling hours sign-in survey (he was silly when the situation seemed most dire and dead serious about making you laugh, to let you know he loved you he sent love letters written in the style of unsentient robots, he cried in any movie where a little boy missed his dad) Survived by the three people who will remember him last (grand niece Mira, second cousin in Michigan Carlton who helped him find his car while leaving in the dark, granddaughter baby who unfortunately has not been born yet but will tomorrow). Survived by (god) by (love) by (time) by ( ).

Anyone who ever knew a how come kind of woman like Marge will delaminate the skin of their reflections as they peel back the vague images of repression of fathers who used to never come home or weren’t welcome there anyway and see for real the absolute necessity of keeping your head down and staying out of trouble, being a good girl and finishing top three in every race. Marge never complained not even once when the first pangs of Braxton-Hicks sent her scuffling for the valium hidden in the bottle labeled “vitamins” in the deep recesses of the medicine cabinet behind the mirror where every morning she used to croon Joy Division about love will tear us apart and now bringing us all back together again to celebrate a vastly underrated life.  

Although her physical presence will no longer be permissible, Irene’s non-physicality will live on in the form of various hazy memories and flashes of recognition currently held by her living loved ones, until they too pass on from this earth. Then it’s over. Utterly. Words written in water, as Keats said, who was her favorite poet who ever carved his transience into stone. But truly that wasn’t the measure of her. Teacher, educator, pants-enhancer. Oral historian of the lives of various backyard birds. She was one of a kind, as all aspire to be. When it ends we hope someone has saved some pictures, not the one where she looks frumpy and disheveled in her apron in the kitchen after Thanksgiving. Even if it’s something as silly as every time you eat meatloaf it reminds you of her. Or lima beans. Or a glazed ham wrapped in cellophane in the fridge. These too can be savored.

11/4/2025