We couldn’t always give her the acknowledgment she craved.
Through storms, droughts, and pandemics, she tried her best to remain brave.
Her passing leaves a hole that’s proving very hard to fill.
I miss her a year later, in some sense I always will.
Safe journeys for your spirit, blessed middle child.
This prissy older sister too soon went off on my own,
And boisterous twin brothers claimed bloodlines theirs alone.
She learned to be the centerpiece, with entrances so grand,
A core of wretched loneliness none could quite understand–
Safe journeys for your spirit, blessed middle child.
Not quite three score and ten since she first started to live,
A heritage to take up, precious friendships to give,
A brief, tempestuous marriage helped provide her with a son.
Through counseling, prayer and solitude, some peace she finally won–
Safe journeys for your spirit, blessed middle child.
Her dad once was a farmer, so she also longed to try.
When siblings tried to thwart her, she threw tantrums, told some lies.
To flourish and to prosper, some abundant, varied schemes–
A late-life farmer partner a final unmet dream.
Safe journeys for your spirit, blessed middle child.
Her resting place a windbreak, along a gentle slope,
With white rose bushes ’round her, in memory and hope.
Her triumphs and her heartbreaks will temper with the years,
We’ll remember her with fondness when spring’s new shoots appear.
Safe journeys for your spirit, blessed middle child.
Jinny's Occasional Poems 