Clare Nell’s Farewell

 Now don’t you cry for Clare Nell.
Her life was no gilded story—
it was bare hands on rough wood,
words sharp as the north wind,
and laughter that left its mark like a knife on soft pine.

In the nursing home, she didn’t fade.
She scrawled herself across the days,
a woman unbowed, cursing with gusto,
I needed her more than she needed me.

And when the sun hit the graveside,
it was just me and the preacher,
words of finality slipping into the earth,
hers still alive in the air,
Don’t you fret about me.

Her life burned bright and hard,
left scars and light in equal measure.
She was who she was,
and that was enough.

(I still cried when I heard she died and vowed to be by her graveside)