He didn’t “get it,

the “loss thing,”

when my aunt died mid-April,

and I lost my second mother.

Didn’t “get it” when I lost my first.

This was not the only time

he was lost in oblivion and

puzzled by my tears.

            *

He didn’t see me hurting

from the loss of my lineage,

and his lack of empathy for my grief

as he made me meet and greet

a friend the next day, as if all was normal.

This time I balked, bolder and older,

and he agreed it was time to ponder

and talk with his mentor.

            *

When he came home

one night days later,

full of hugs of apology,

and tulips on the kitchen counter,

it was a breakthrough for us both.

It took a few days

but what came out

brought tears upon tears.

           *

Not having grown up

with emotional displays

he didn’t “get” the meaning of loss.

With no models of grief

he didn’t know how to feel it himself

nor how to give solace,

not just lip service,

to those who had lost.

          *

 I cried for him.

How very sad, as a child

he didn’t know the love I knew.

He, a sensitive child,

in an icebox family

fraught with frigid emotion,

and warm, deep affection only

from his great-aunt, Dot.

        *

He brought me pink tulips,

flowers of a contrite heart,

and held me close

and kissed me

with lips full of apologies

but I was the one

who felt sorry for him

for the years he knew not love.

*

Twenty-eight years ago

God told me “Love this man,

trust him and have faith in him,

and hold him to your heart.”

Many moons later, I love him light-years

more than the day we met

and in then-unimaginable ways

has our love strove for the stars.

*

He has brought me:

kindness and gentleness,

generosity of spirit,

goodness of heart,

and healing humor.

What I have taught him:

the glories of love

and agony of loss.

        *

From the beginning

the seed of love was sown

for better or worse

deeply within the parched,

but fertile soil of my imperfect heart.

And he has cultivated the growth

of a stalwart, staid evergreen,

amid the blooming two-lips of forever love.