poetry

There’s No Future Time More Special Than Now. {poetry}

 

We all grow up with family history and stories.

I only had the opportunity to know one of my grandmothers; my father’s mother passed before I was born. My mother’s mother lived with us for a time, so some of her stories became mine.

She was not yet a teenager when she lost her much-loved older brother. In an altercation not instigated by him, he was struck down, hit his head, and died very quickly. From this painful experience, my grandmother learned firsthand not to put aside the things that brought her joy for a future day that might never come. I can remember her teaching me this when I was a teenager.

In my memory, she had a pink sweater (pink was her favorite color) she had bought, and I thought she would save it for a special occasion. But she wore it very soon instead. And she told me why.

That made an impact on me. And that memory came back to me, one day, when I was looking for a bar of soap and found a beautifully wrapped bar made with essential oils in the back of our bathroom cabinet.

For a moment, I considering putting it back, saving it for a special use. But then I heard my grandmother’s voice and remembered the lesson she had taught me: there was no guarantee of a time in the future more special than the moment I found myself in right then.

For weeks, every time I washed my hands, how I enjoyed the scents of peppermint and sage!

***

Looking for a hand soap,
I go to the cabinet, find
a special one I’ve stashed, wrapped
in green and white paper,
recalling when I bought the bar
it cost more than I usually paid.

My grandmother’s words
suddenly come to mind
from 40 years ago,
telling me not to squirrel away
new clothes for special occasions,
but to use and enjoy them instead.
She lost a cherished older brother
at a young age.
He was struck down
on the street,
his head hit a brick —
gone in an instant.
Her mother was never the same,
and my grandmother saw then
that things saved for
a filigreed future day
are often set aside in vain
for a time that never comes.

Standing in the bathroom,
I hear her wise words
loud and clear,
remove the soap’s pristine wrapper,
gratefully inhale the soothing fragrances
of peppermint and sage.

***

Carolyn Chilton Casas is a Reiki Master and teacher. Her favorite themes to write about are healing, awareness, and the life journey. Carolyn’s stories and poems have appeared in Braided Way, Energy, Odyssey, Reiki News Magazine, The Art of Healing, Touch, and in other publications. You can read more of Carolyn’s work on Instagram or in her first collection of poems titled Our Shared Breath.

***

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