Pink Lemonade

I see you in the sunset;
picnic tables and pink lemonade.
Time stretching toward eternity like a summer’s day.
I feel you in the moonbeams extending out from among the stars;
The wind whispers of your kiss against my cheek.
I hear you, like a heartbeat, in each peal of thunder.
Rumbling like the grief from which I am formed.

I see you as an after image, your face superimposed on my grief.
I cry for him but also for you. For the one that comes after.
For the ones that came before.
A loneliness wedged deep within my soul stirs.
A knowing.
A missing.
One heartbeat, One heartbreak away from you.

I see you in the sunset;
With the grass between my toes and rain falling upon my face;
I miss you.
For all the unsaid things, the hidden words that cracked and faulterd.
I’m sorry.
For the pain inflicted with intention and without.
Forgive me.
As I forgive you.

I see you in the sunset;
pink lemonade and moonbeams.
Time stretching toward eternity like a summer’s day.
I’m not only crying for him. I’m crying for the one who comes after;
These tears also belong to you.

©Andrea Curran

Authors note:

As of today, April 6th 2026 my dad has been gone from this earth for one year. He passed peacefully with two of his loving cats curled up on his lap. (Misty and Nicky if you’ve been keeping track) Somedays are still harder than others. The grief like a rising and falling tide. I’ve accomplished so much in the last year and I know he would be so very proud of me. I actually wrote this poem after my uncle Rick died. They were very different men yet I saw my future grief reflected in my cousins eyes. I don’t know if this kind of grief, the loss of a parent, ever truly passes. It just integrates and becomes one with our internal experience. A mosaic of life, love, and memory.