thoughts upon my newly acquired orphan state.  i am fifty two and then a little more it should not matter that  i can  no longer knock and open that door to sit in the corner and quietly speak of matters small and large, joyous and bleak....it should not matter for now i am grown  with others to love a child of my own.... it should not matter  but oh how it does... it leaves me speechless, somedays and sometimes turned inside out....on a raft  alone in a sea of  thoughts.... all this in a grief so quietly my own... yet we go about the closing down of a life eighty years and more, taking things so precious to the local opportunity store... consoling ourselves with the mantra that mother loved her charities as we give away the clothes she wore.... we pack, up the unit in which she lived.....pore over the photos showing the love of the life she lived...we converse about memories and family lore...we laugh, we cry, we laugh some more....we note that the  photos we love the most are  those of her holding grandchildren  on  lap and in arm... we talk about the fierce, fierce love that would allow no lasting harm... to befall those in her care...we also talk about the fashions of clothes and  of hair....then... there are the silences so profound...... when we all realize once more she will no longer be around....at least in the physical....in our hearts she will alway be near and dear .....we pack up her rugs and chair....her cookbooks  and clutter, bed bath towels, a myriad of things  in my mind i hear her mutter... such a fuss, such a palaver!....finally all is done...
her  place a shell....empty and forlorn ...we walk out the door as we quietly mourn.....we three orphans, my brothers and me....
stand in the moonlight and stare at the sea....all thinking the same ....poor orphaned me....