The Dash

Your poem The Dash has spoken to me and probably to so many people throughout the world. I was one to hear your poem in remebrance at my grandmothers funeral in February which I can remember like it was yesterday. It was a cold February day I went to my uncles house because he was having a very hard time. We both got ready together for the funeral in our purple shirt and ties that my grandmother loved very much. My uncle and I drove to the church where I was chosen to read your poem The Dash in front of everybody, I didn’t think anything of it besides my grandmother every day asking if we have read a poem lately and we need to read that poem. The Dash will really give you a feeling for how precious life is. I reached that podium at church to read my grandmothers favorite poem that I have never given the time of day to read but read it like I was reading in school to the class. I started to read about a guy who was mourning in rememberance of a person he loved very much. I started to think this is sounding familiar I kept reading choking up every once in a while hoping I didn’t studder a word of something embarassing. Then started reading about how it isn’t the sadness or how long she lived it is about the little dash in between the birth and death. It explained that in that little dash it can show so many memories of the loved that we missed and loved to bring back those memories. That little dash showed how well she has lived her life and all her accomplishments she has had through out the years. I started remembering all these wonderful things and started to cry saying I will miss her very much and that it really isn’t about how the day she died or how old she llived it was about that little dash that could speak more than a million words. After I read the last sentence of your poem of it asking how we should live our dash I went to my seat and thought. I thought about what I have read and figured out that it was my grandmother speaking through me in that poem...