Hidden among the roots

of grass I hear

a cuckoo ~ Otsuin*

Today my memory invites me to that time…the time my grandparents invited me to go with them to visit family. Sitting in Great Aunt Ida’s living room with her siblings and their spouses listening to shared stories of unknown family and friends, a adolescent’s sudden insight, “that is what being old is….sharing stores of those who died in one’s yesterdays.”

Today as a great grandmother, I find myself wandering through recalled memories with yearnings to visit past times colored by gratitude and secret desires to resolve moments of disconnect.  

Seeking moments of my mom and dad, sisters and brothers, friends, extended family, and teachers and imagining us all sitting together around a table of trust, the trust that evaporates caution, sharing yesterday’s stories of being.

*cited in Y Hoffmann, Japanese Death Poems