Grandma, Tell Me

Grandma, tell me we’re too beautiful to die.

Tell me about how Grandpa would get up on the roof

And play his guitar and sing till the sun went down.

Grandma, tell me what it did to you

To watch your husband die,

To watch him struggle at the last.

Grandma, tell me what it was like

To watch your boy grow old,

To watch your son become a father.

Grandma, tell me what it meant to you

To watch the Allies invade Berlin.

Tell me what it was to feel pride for America.

Grandma, tell me the bravery it took

To believe in God

When you heard bomb sirens.

Now Grandma, please, if nothing else, tell me this:

What’s it like to die?

When I saw you in that rose-gold casket

You looked too beautiful to die.

Couldn’t you have been sleeping?

Grandma, why the Hell did you leave us here?

I’ll stay if you stay.

Just make me one more batch of those molasses cookies,

Give me one more hug, one more birthday card in scrawled cursive,

One more reminder that the more the world mauls us,

The more beautiful we become.

There's so much in a life.

How is it that it should end this way,

Dressed in rose-gold and

Dropped into the abyss?

Grandma, I’m scared to die.

What’s it like to pass into that suffocating pitch,

To close your eyes and never wake,

To only live on in photographs...

Grandma, I don’t think I can do it.

I don’t think I can die….

Can't we fight the sunset?

How did he embrace it like that?

Tell me how he sang when the world was collapsing.

Grandma, tell me we’re too brave to become dust.

Tell me we’re loved enough to be forgiven.

Tell me we’re too beautiful to die.