Dearly.
How was it used?
Dearly beloved.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered.
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here
in this forgotten photo album
I came upon recently.

Dearly beloved, gathered here together
in this closed drawer,
fading now, I miss you.
I miss the missing, those who left earlier.
I miss even those who are still here.
I miss you all dearly.
Dearly do I sorrow for you.

Sorrow: that’s another word
you don’t hear much anymore.
I sorrow dearly.
~Margaret Atwood from “Dearly”

All day we packed boxes.
We read birth and death certificates.
The yellowed telegrams that announced
our births, the cards of congratulations
and condolences, the deeds and debts,
love letters, valentines with a heart
ripped out, the obituaries.
We opened the divorce decree,
a terrible document of division and subtraction.
We leafed through scrapbooks:
corsages, matchbooks, programs to the ballet,
racetrack, theater—joy and frivolity
parceled in one volume—
painstakingly arranged, preserved
and pasted with crusted glue.
We sat in the room in which the beloved
had departed. We remembered her yellow hair
and her mind free of paradox.
We sat together side by side
on the empty floor and did not speak.
There were no words
between us other than the essence
of the words from the correspondences,
our inheritance—plain speak,
bereft of poetry.
~Jill Bialosky “The Guardians” from The Players.

This time of year, huge flocks of migrating birds pass noisily overhead, striving together in their united effort to reach home. I envy their shared instinct to gather together with purpose.

Human families can be far more scattered and far less harmonious, yet still plenty noisy.

Through these holiday weeks, I take time to remember those who left this life long ago. It is bittersweet to be all together only in a photo album, with youth and smiles preserved indefinitely.

In a flash of time, three generations have passed: children have had children who now have children. Newlyweds have become grandparents, trying valiantly to fit the shoes of those who came before.

In our own eventual leave-taking, we will become the missing to be missed. There will come along new generations – those we will never meet – who will turn the pages of photograph albums and writings and wonder aloud about these unknown people from whom they descend.

Dearly beloved,
we who are missing are right here,
waiting in a drawer or a file or a book on the shelf,
ready to share, in plain words bereft of poetry,
all our love and hopes and sorrows for you,
the future generations to come.