Post No. 047: For My Family, Part 5 — My Mother's Passing Away

(Image from Cannon Mortuary)

But To Praise Her
(Or, "My Mother's Passing Away")

I come not to bury Claudia,
but to praise her! I come
not to weep for her passing,
but to rejoice for her living!

Hear me now, Oh Mourners:
There is nothing to grieve—
and everything to believe!
For, there is no death; there
is only ever-changing life.

Let all those listen who have
ears to hear: "Elvis has left
the building—and just because
he called it home, does not
mean that he was Graceland."

Thus, the Claudia whom we
knew is not the Claudia who is
now; she has shed her clothing
and stepped unadorned into
the waters of All Knowing.

She is there with her family.
She is there with her friends.
She is there with all those
who have gone before her
and she is basking in The Sun.

She has played her part.
She has spoken her lines.
She has now exited the stage
and removed her costume.
The play is over and she is
off to her next performance.

For, we are not our bodies—
we are our souls. We are
not the characters we play
in this theater we call life.
We are the actors who
bring our characters to life.

So, join me in celebrating
a life lived to its fullest in
the face of many challenges;
a truly beautiful voice in
an often-chaotic opera.

Let her brush strokes speak for
themselves; let them show what
she went through—again and
again—to pick up her palette and
her brush and to paint that canvas.

I am proud to call her mother!
I am proud to call her friend!
I am so grateful for the dance
she that danced with us and
I can't wait to see her again!

-Paul Whiting
(a.k.a., A Creative Writer)
"I maybe say too much about how life really is!"

My Writing Notes:

The reason that I wrote this poem can be summed up with the following statement: My mother passed away in 2004 and her funeral was held at Cannon Mortuary in Salt Lake City, Utah (the image of which is illustrating this poem). And I wrote this poem and I read it at her funeral, because I was trying to convey the idea that all of life is eternal and just because "the actor has left the stage" does not mean that you will never see them again...

And this poem was also published on my "Small All White in the Forest" blog (please see the hyperlink below for the blog), since I feel that the message in this poem applies to the message that I am trying to convey through "Small All White in the Forest."

This poem was written in Salt Lake City, Utah.

-Paulee

https://smallallwhiteintheforest.blogspot.com

This "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" Post No. 047 was edited on September 19th, 2023.

"Poetry is using the fewest words possible in order to describe all that is possible to describe." –Paul Whiting [June 1st, 2022]

Post No. 046: For My Family, Part 4 — Upon Your Half Century

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Upon Your Half Century

Warmed by the vanilla light
of your favorite
lamp,
you sit
submerged into the world
of another
renowned personality,
or distant country,
or nearly forgotten
civilization.

How impassioned you are
to absorb
all knowledge!
If only all
those books could be read
intravenously,
or via osmosis,
or even digestively
as that magazine
so erroneously suggests.

But, alas,
until Radio Shack can install
a "Ronco Read-O-Matic"
discretely
upon your person,
you will
have to be
content spending
the second half of
your century under that
Itty Bitty Book Lite,
where age may
mistake you
for a timeless scholar.

-Paul Whiting
(a.k.a., A Creative Writer)
"I maybe say too much about how life really is!"

My Writing Notes:

The reason that I wrote this poem can be summed up with the following statement: I wrote this poem for my mother's 50th birthday!

You see, my mother, who passed away in 2004, was an avid reader. And she would spend hours reading newspapers, magazines and books by the light of her Itty Bitty Book Light! And her favorite reading material, specifically, was biographies and autobiographies. Plus, reading helped my mother to escape the stress of life because she dealt with a lot of physical and psychological health issues her entire life.

So, her scholarly side is what inspired this poem!

And this poem was also published on my "Small All White in the Forest" blog (please see the hyperlink below for the blog), since I feel that the message in this poem applies to the message that I am trying to convey through "Small All White in the Forest."

This poem was written in Salt Lake City, Utah.

-Paulee

https://smallallwhiteintheforest.blogspot.com

This "Paul Whiting — A Creative Writer" Post No. 046 was edited on February 10th, 2024.

"Poetry is using the fewest words possible in order to describe all that is possible to describe." –Paul Whiting [June 1st, 2022]