"You Didn't Even Know Him"

These words were said to me after I told someone that I wrote a poem in memory of a child who died from cancer. This person DID know the child, quite well, and I was hoping he would read the poem to let me know if I had got it “right.” This is something I do for people who knew or are related to a person who I wrote a memorial poem for. He has yet to read it.

 

When I ask the person to read the poem, I am not looking for praise or attention. I ask them to read it just to see if I wrote about the person the poem is about correctly. A friend of mine lost her mom, and after I wrote a poem in her memory, my friend read the poem and said it was spot on. I got the same response after a cousin I didn’t know had passed away (his sister read the poem and loved it). So it’s mainly to see if I got the information about the person right. I would also like to know if they are okay with this poem being written.

 

And in the case of the child who died from cancer, I would like to know from his mother if it’s okay for this poem to be written. I would also like their permission for this poem to be published, as all of these memorial poems that I write are for a book of poems I plan to submit for publication next year.

 

The task of writing memorial poems for people I didn’t know has been a challenge. I have written memorial poems for celebrities and public figures – Michael Landon, Princess Diana, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Michael Jackson and Paul Reubens – but in the writing of those poems, I wrote about what I knew of their lives and careers, their work, their influences and how they fared through tribulations. Research is also done to help gather information. But I have also written memorial poems for other people I didn’t know at all or very well – family or friends of friends or someone I heard about. In the case of the child who lost his battle with cancer, he was someone I heard about. I was so saddened by this news and so moved that I wrote the poem. It remains to be seen if I will be able to include it in the book.

 

The news of a child passing away because of cancer is very sad. It can affect everyone. It can especially affect anyone who has lost a family member or child to cancer themselves. It is a very sad, very heartbreaking thing.

 

In my case, not only was I saddened by this news but I was also angry. I was angry that cancer stole the life of yet another child. I was angry this child won’t have the chance to grow up. I was angry that this child was forced to endure a wretched disease at so young an age instead of enjoying being a child.

 

This whirlwind of emotions drove me to write the poem. I didn’t try to personalize it, because, it’s true; I didn’t know this child in any way at all. But his death moved me. His death drove me to write. So I just tried to make it a poem for all children who pass away because of cancer.

 

The inspiration for that poem came from his passing.

 

The thing of it is, though, that this comment hit me pretty hard. I have been conflicted about writing these poems. Those very words the person said to me could very well be the same words someone reading one of the poems might say after reading it (though they might substitute “him” with “her”). I have been struggling with this task. I write these poems not because I want attention or to interfere with someone’s grief. I write these poems because I felt compelled to write them. So many people pay tribute to others they don’t know in some form or another. For me, it’s with poetry. When my cousin died, I wrote a poem about him. When my friend broke down into tears over the news of his friend’s death, I wrote a memorial poem for the friend (and his mother later emailed me saying she loved the poem). Heck, there are even poems written in memory of dogs I have had.

 

Am I wrong to write these poems in memory of people I didn’t know? I have no clue. The people who DID know them might feel like their privacy has been violated. They might want to know who the hell I am to write such a poem about someone I didn’t even know.

 

And there are those who might feel that it’s impossible to write anything about someone you never knew in a way that captures who that person really was. (Authors of biographies of people from the past might beg to differ.)

 

But I felt compelled to write those poems. Their deaths moved me. I was saddened by their passing. So I wrote those poems.

 

I didn’t even plan to turn this into a book until much later. I mean, right now, there are 50 poems in that book so far, with more which I plan to write. I COULD just keep them to myself, but how would that honor the person who the poem is for? Some people might read the poem and feel moved or happy by the memories it evokes of that person. And some of the people I wrote about may never be known to others if it weren’t for getting a poem about them published in this book. One person I wrote a poem for had a LOUSY obituary written for him, so I wrote my poem in response to this, because I KNEW this person, and if he was to get a proper obituary, it would be that one. Another person I knew didn’t get an obituary in the paper at all. So I wrote the poem. And, anyway, he was my friend, and I was saddened by his passing. Gone too soon.

 

My collection of memorial poems does include poems in memory of people who I did know, but there are also poems written in the memory of people I didn’t. I only hope, for the poems that won’t be read before publication, that I get the poems about those people right, and that their loved ones might appreciate and be okay with what I wrote.