Gale Force
by Kara L.C. Jones

Remembering all those who died on 9/11/01...
and all who have died before & since.

I used to be a gale,
soaring into any room
with an outburst of laughter,
a pouring of sunny miracles.
But since my son died,
I am a sallow fog,
a damp veil hanging from thin air
with the ability to unsettle
the marrow from your bones.
Most birds don't like
my moist tears on their wings,
but some --
like the black birds --
gather to crowe dirges,
giving voice to sorrow
over the lands.
I used to be a gale
who would just breeze by.
Now I am a mist,
a permanent part of your land.

Kara is a different kind of parent, now with two stepchildren in college and one dead son. When your parents die, do you stop being their child? Well, just because Kara's son died, doesn't mean she's stopped being a parent -- though this parenthood is manifest in different ways than the parenthood one might have to a living four year old. Is it a sick obsessive compulsion that she cannot "get over it" and "move on"? No. It is a conscious decision to have her son's life and death change this world for the better -- just as he might have done if he were here to make a difference himself, alive, with his own two hands -- only this way the differences come from Kara's channelling of his legacy.