​​Like I did when I was a kid, I can feel your beautiful energy alive and counting the candles of my passing years with me.

I like to remember the rooms surrounding darkness and counting your candles with you.

Disbelief that one so close could live so long
Disbelief that one so knowledgeable could find value in me
Disbelief that we would ever part

We didn;t have much, so you whispered, "You can have my wish" and invite me to blow out your candles.

I did wish... I did wish as hard and as full as a wish can be wished that never, ever would another second pass,

That never would this very instant of my time and your time suffer the slow and torturous sweeping of the hands on the clock in the corner.

It passed, it swept, and took with it the hope that my wishes mattered. It proved that my wishes weren't real, and that nothing would ever stop the unfolding of a future meant for nightmares.

Reading aloud your eulogy still echoes to me, like a final hug on a front step and an unraveling of a soul at the bottom of your driveway. Like the drudging rhythm of a heart beating on without purpose.

I'm still counting these candles, I can still feel your energy alive, and as you surrendered all of your wishes, so to can you have mine.

I miss you Mom

"Burke"

​"Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of small children" - William Makepeace Thackeray

No words have ever spoken more beautifully to capture what you've meant and continue to mean to so many.

I've watched you teach love, kindness, strength and courage to nearly 60 children from any walk of life that led them to our door...

and in that, I find my definition of the most beautiful
woman alive.

​Happy Mother's day angel, I love you.

​Orion rests on his side tonight,his eyes all aglow and his bow drawn so tight.

I can see him staring down at you, and I know just what he's going through

His heart rushes and races, his knees they grow weak, and his heart becomes tangled in the soft words that you speak.

He's seen eons of beauty up close and afar, he's witnessed the birth of our planets and the fleeting bright fury in trillions of stars.
Hes watched the sun circle 'round and the moon do it to, but he's never seen anything as lovely as you.

I love you Brenda Renee

I woke up this morning in a sweat
I watched at light speed as our lives together flew by
I heard the songs of our days
I watched the memories we've built towering over us
I could feel your hand in mine
I could smell your perfume as a hurricane of emotion carried us away

and then I realized that in my life, all I've known is you…all I've ever longed for is you…all I've ever wished for is you…and I felt content

and I knew somehow when we crashed into each other so long ago that this was meant for us

I caught my breath, I saw you sleeping there next to me and I begged whatever powers that there may be… "Let the fact that this lady is loved be proof of my life when it's my time to go"… 

I love you Brenda Renee

​Songs on repeat that used to slip through the speakers of an am radio

Every note dripping with the same soft lullaby that your voice pours over me

Memories from when we were kids

Smiles and tears that we've danced through

Trouble and triumph that we've held on tight for

Bad decisions that we've laughed about and long goodbyes that made us cry for just one more kiss

You're more like a movie star to me than you've ever been,

Something unreachable and with every glance, a beauty that I've never seen

Tomorrow, like today, like the day we met, I'll always be your biggest fan

I love you Brenda Renee

​The pages of a beautiful story that you had yet to finish writing ripped away too soon...

Deaths cold fingers the culprit, and our human weakness the accomplice, my heart collapses at the thought of who you'd be today.

You did what others dream, you stepped up where others yield. You strangled the doubt that most fear, and you towered above even the legends of my youth.
I never looked any further than my dinner table to find my hero, and those tiny hands that coaxed my first steps, still drive my forward motion today.

To look back on what what you accomplished in your short time on this planet casts a heavy, harsh shadow over the little life that comforts me in my own journey.

I can't know what my own future holds, but I do know that one day, I want... no I need.. no... I hope against hope for the people that I leave behind to know that I was a beautiful part of their story, and that my hands offered the same guidance that yours did for me.

I may never measure up to the bar that you so beautifully set, but Mom, I'll try with everything that I am... with everything that you made me.

For as long as I can recall, my aunt Toni has been different from anyone else in my life.

Her differences to me though were not physical, and not mental.

​To me, her differences were human... as she was much more than most.
Imagine loving without the fear of rejection

Imagine loving so purely that you never had to comprehend love's opposite

Imagine living each and every day with family and friends at the front of your mind rather than yourself

Imagine the desire to greet everyone that you met with a smile, a touch, a long embrace and a kiss

Toni didn't have to imagine, because her love for life and those that she knew was above everything, very different.

As we lay Toni to rest, I can't help but finally recognize how dramatically different she was from the rest of us, and how beautifully different we all might one day be for having known her.

Goodbye Aunt Toni, and thank you for every single hug, kiss, and glance away from normal that you ever shared with me.

​Burke

​Its been a decade mom...

Ten years to live this down

Ten years to forget the hurt and the loss

Ten years to let go and live

Ten years to learn from the legacy that you left

But mom, I've wasted my days. I've lost sight of what it means to do this well. I look into the mirror at an aging face and wonder if our ends will be the same. I fight with demons that my heart and soul blame for your leaving. I curse and kick at the walls of belief that will forever keep me out

What originally felt like the quick snuffing of your candle has proven to be a slow dimming of the light that you shared with all of us

I'll get through, I'll find your fire again… you raised me better than this.

Sometimes though, I slip… I find darkness a bit softer than realities harsh light…

I just miss you mom… still… always & forever

Strange to feel trepidation in penning a thought to my daughters. Stranger still to realize that the times dictate our fears, and bind what should flow naturally from parent to child.

I'll scream it louder than the norm might shout and not fear society's scowl in doing so.

To the most amazing young women I've ever had the honor of knowing, my daughters, a thought that I trust you'll consider, and hopefully hold close.

"Your naked body should belong only to those who have fallen in love with your naked soul."

Live unencumbered my angels, and chase passionately every single thing that steals the attention of your heart.

​Like a child before Christmas, I’ll lay awake and wonder about what I might find in the morning...

Will I wake up alone at the end of a dream, or will this wonderful slumber continue?

Will I find you again when I open my eyes, or will the sandman have broken his beautiful spell?

Are the memories and beauty that you’ve shown me just wishes come true in some dust land fairytale? Or are you really there, and still playing captor to this old heart of mine?

If my dream is over, then I’ll forever cherish the beauty and magic that I’ve seen... that you’ve shown, that you’ve shared...

But if this dream is to continue... if I find you wrapped in these arms when the sunshine kisses the sky, if your smile and starry eyes are still the first things to illuminate our morning, and if you’d care to hold my hand for another trip through the stars...

Then I’ll smile and find content, lost in the beautiful dream that you’ve made for me.

​Sad that for his entire life, Rafiki knew nothing but a cage. We all wake up to this single, wonderful opportunity to chase dreams, love and emotion on this quick trip through the stars.

Somewhere along the way, we've tripped and twisted in our purpose. We're limping now through this entanglement of ideology set forth for us by those that we can't seem to stop following, feeding. Someone set a precedence and someone accepted it and someone taught it to another that chose to accept rather than question.

​Set another precedent. Someone ask why. Someone stomp and shout against the norm. Someone bash and beat what we've become until we become something new. Why do we default to hurting when we are capable of healing?

My rights as an animal are no different than Rafiki's, no different than the unnamed, untamed that still live by instinct alone.

My heart breaks at the thought of a cage for such a beautiful creature. R.I.P. big brother.

Two years ago today, your suffering stopped.

Two years ago today, your hurt ended.

Two years ago, I kissed you goodbye for the last time.
​
Two years ago, you asked that I be strong in your weakness.
For two years I have been strong, and for two years I have drawn strength from your memory.

But for just one day, one day in each of those years, this day, I break.

I fall apart and ask why. I pull out old pictures, and I curse the cheated, the hurt, and the devastation that a sickness brought.

It happened, and it happened in front of all of us. It happened in the face of faith, it happened in the face of denial, and it happened in spite of every effort.

Then in this same day, and in those same pictures, I see your smile. I see your strength, your wisdom, and your faith.

I shudder to consider my own weakness where you had only grace and power and beauty.

Then I get up, I dry my eyes, and I take a breath.

​You were an incredible mother, you are an unstoppable memory, and you shall forever be my source of strength.

​I love you Mom.