I Must Remember- poetry

By Marion Waterston, January 13, 2005

 

You are where you want to be

I must remember that

 

You do not feel the healing warmth of sunshine

Nor April's cleansing rain

 

No song of summer nightbirds

Can alter your tranquility

 

The tumbling leaves of autumn

Lie forgotten on the hill

 

Even winter's silver promises

Fail to woo you from your bed

 

You do not miss these things, my love

I miss them for you

 

And because they are for you

They are sweeter and more beautiful

 

So I will gather them like jewels and hold them close

And cover them with dreams

 

Until that special day when I will find you

And we shall delight in them together

Marion Waterston survived the loss of two members of her family to suicide- her husband, Richard, a psychiatrist, forty-seven years of age, and her son Mark, a college student, nineteen years of age. Following the death of her husband, she helped found a group for widowed people in Rockland County, New York and served as its first president for three years. After the death of her son, some sixteen years later, she joined a group specifically designed for those who had lost someone to suicide. Upon moving to Albuquerque in 1995, she joined "SOS" (Survivors of Suicide) and for the last few years has been president of that group. She states that she's been aware of certain differences in the way she grieved for her husband and then, her son. Some of these differences are expressed in her poetry.