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I thought 2020 was awful enough with the pandemic.

Little did I know that 2021 would not only continue the reek of loss, it would deepen the layer of grief already experienced by many.

A few weeks ago, my family suffered the loss of my beloved cousin. For me, it was like losing a little brother. He was a loving father, a treasured member of our family, an irreplaceable friend, and to many youngsters, their beloved coach (he was a veteran coach in our community). And he was just shy of turning 48 years old.

“Too young,” many of us said.

“You left us too early,” we all agreed.

The void he is leaving is huge.

Witnessing his life, his passing, and then his burial left me emotionally raw. There is nothing more I can do than to allow the waves of grief to move through me…and so it is.

It was after watching his casket close, tossing the last flower on his grave, and watching them lower him into the ground that I turned to my writing for some level of reprieve from the grief. Instead, I found that the remedy to grief was to give it voice and volume.

The following poem is inspired and dedicated to my cousin, Jesus Emmanuel Ramos.

May it also offer a sense of normalcy to the depth of grief that we are all experiencing in varying degrees, and may you find some solace that grief—like death—is a part of living.

Let the Body Grieve

Let the sadness come

Let the tears flow

Let the anguish course through every vein

Let the grief gush

and the wailing sound

May every breath bring the lungs pain

Let the chest heave

and the mind go

There is only today, not tomorrow

No comfort here in the words or the songs

You who I loved

is now listless and calm

Let the heart break

Inconsolable through time

There is no peace in seeing you gone.

Rest in peace cous’…until we meet again.