The Matriarch

The Matriarch 

As mom says so many goodbye’s

she doesn’t cry as one without hope.

She has always been a

‘tears may last for the night

but joy comes in the morning’

kind of surrendered soul.

She acknowledges loss and pain

without giving it too much power.

It’s been that way since 1950.

 

I’ve been watching her intently 

as of late looking for inconsistencies,

breaches in the dam even as the dam breaks,

but there isn’t a single hypocrisy

between how she’s run her whole life

and how she’s finishing this race.

Even as she slides toward eternity,

Her heart is fixated on others—

almost obsessively-compulsively so.

 

She doesn’t like a lot of attention,

but I know of no one

who deserves more.

Her tireless and thankless

commitment to so many for so long

stands as a weathered Ebenezer 

for future generations—

my children adore her for it.

 

“Mimi is so cute.” 

 

My girls have said this of her

since coming of age

and realizing with time

how rare their grandma really is.

They know of no purer person.

Her extravagant love is guileless,

her motherly care, peerless.

She’s of the first order.

 

One in a 7.7 billion.

 

So as she eyes the finish line,

She is going out with a bang.

Even as her body yields to mortality,

her evergreen and indomitable soul

rises like the Phoenix.

Her name is Philena which means:

“Lover of all mankind.”

How perfectly fitting

for someone of her ilk.

 

A mother to many.

A mother to me.