When We Come Together As Family

The poem below reminded me of how true this is when family hasn't been together for awhile. The line I love is "it pulls around us like a drawstring, that time, when we come together." As the family gathered today to pay our last respects to my Auntie Lila, I was reminded of this poem. I love this moment with my mother and her brother Bob. They were remembering stories of childhood like it was yesterday.It was like a drawstring pulling us together.

All

all he would have to say is,

remember the time I came home

with a beard and Dad didn’t know me,

and we would all laugh,

Mom would say, just by your voice,

I knew your voice, and my sister

would say, the dog kept barking, and

I would say, that was the

summer I got a camera.

it pulls around us

like a drawstring, that time,

when we come together,

awkward and older,

our frayed conversations

trying to thread some memory

of each other,

one of us will only have to say,

remember the time you came home

from the bush with your beard,

and we were all easy again

with each other,

some will say how

Mom knew his voice, someone

will remember how the dog barked, I

will remember my new camera,

and we are a family again,

young and laughing on the front porch.

-Leona Gom