FRESH FROM BIRCH CREEK

Today is January 12, Gwen died on November 12. Two months since my life was changed forever. Those who know about these things tell me that anniversaries are tough; they are right. November 12, 2010, 11/12/10, an easy date to remember, a day that is so difficult to remember. My daughters and daughters-in-law found a picture of Gwen that became sort of the center piece of remembrances of her at her wake and funeral. Perhaps because it is on the bookmarks that I use in the books I read, I have come to treasure that picture. I wrote a poem about it:

THAT DARN PICTURE

I have many pictures of her
This one is my favorite
I don’t know who snapped it
Or where she was
Or what she was doing
Or whom she was with.

There she is
In all her youthful glory
Head thrown back
Laughing, happy, sassy
Hair big and feathery
Wearing a goofy straw hat.

She was just out of high school then
It would be a year
Before I met her
When she sat on my lap
For the first time
And said she’d see a movie with me.

That picture haunts me now
It was on everything and everywhere
At her funeral
It is far from my idea of her
Yet it is exactly
Who she was.

I spent a lifetime
Getting to know and love
The girl in that picture
Or, was it the one
Not in the picture
That I knew so well?

I miss them both.

John A. Bayerl, January 11, 2011

Especially today, two months later, I miss them both.