Author’s Note

I am sharing only this piece today, as it stands alone as my tribute to my long‑lost brother. Some writings belong to a larger collection, but this one carries its own gravity — a quiet, personal remembrance that deserves its own space.

Ed’s absence has shaped the long arc of my life. In these lines, I tried to give voice to the grief that never fully settles, the kind that lingers even decades later. When I wrote, “Gently, I curse your absence, / For you left me much too soon in life,” I was speaking from a place that time has never managed to soften.

A Week After Never is my attempt to hold onto the memories we shared while acknowledging the years that have stretched between us. The poem carries both the sorrow of knowing we will not walk the same path again in this life and the quiet hope that someday — somewhere — we will meet once more, even if it must be “a week after never.”

This lament is not only for the brother I lost too soon, but for the conversations we never had, the questions only he could have answered, and the life we never got to finish together. Writing this was my way of keeping him close, of refusing to let the distance of years erase the love that remains.

A Week After Never

We shall next meet again a week after never;
Our season we spent together is over;
It could not last.
The memories we share of that short measure of time
Are locked in my heart.
They are of cherished events forever filed away in my past.

~~

I will not gaze down the long road of existence before me,
Wishing for your return,
For I know your specter will never more walk down that dusty lane.
I will not stand at my threshold with hopeful arms extended,
For I realize I will not see you on my path again.

~~

Gently, I curse your absence, 
For you left me much too soon in life.
I had much to learn, to ask of you–questions, 
Which could be answered by no other.
Still I am grateful for our shared moments,
Even though they were so brief.
Many have wished they had a friend like you.

My brother, Ed

Closing Author’s Note

Thank you for spending a moment with this remembrance. This poem comes from a place I rarely open — the part of me that still reaches back across the years, still feels the weight of what was lost, and still carries the love that never faded. As the poem says, those memories are “locked in my heart… forever filed away in my past,” yet they continue to shape the present.

I chose to share only this piece today because some memories deserve a quiet room of their own. If this poem brings to mind someone you’ve lost — someone whose absence still echoes — I hope it offers a sense of companionship in that feeling. Grief is heavy, but it softens when shared.

More stories and poems will return next time. For today, this one stands alone, just as the brother it honors once did in my life.

Please drop a note if you wish and let me know if this stirred a memory or two of your own. Then join us again in two weeks for the tale of a dog that moo’d and a woman who never inhaled.