Without You

Your absence is loud.
It echos through my being,
it tears through my heart.
Ten years,
I have walked thousands of days
and nights without you
by my side.
How?
How have I navigated the storms
life presented?
How did I hold onto small things that
you would have seen large,
the way only you could see,
and feel my soul
through the sweet and sour.
Days,
months,
years.
You missed the constellations
in my boys eyes,
the miracle of my grandson
with your middle name
and your smile.
I don't know how
that grief morphs through
months and years.
Then,
in a moment,
a sound,
a smell,
evokes memories of home.
I see you in my poetry,
in my brilliant boys,
in kindness within me.
A kindness I learned from you.
Your legacy is alive.
Your legacy as big as
you will always be to me.