The Chimes

      One of the fairly common things given in remembrance of a loved one is wind chimes. I was not sure what to do with the set we received in Tracy's memory. They certainly did not reflect his taste in music. Reed eventually hung them in our back yard apple tree. Unlike my brother-in-law, who finds such chimes a painful reminder of the perpetual winds of his North Dakota childhood, I do not dislike wind chimes. But I did not see how they reflected loss of a loved one until this year when, due to the late arrival of snow, we left them up through the winter. There is something incredibly brave about the music of chimes in a winter wind. Their sound could be the theme song of grief. Hope amidst a howling storm.

 

The Chimes

 

The chimes that hang upon the tree

make music in your memory.

In all the winter wind and chill,

through many storms, I heard them still.

 

Someday soon those winds will bring

growth reawakened with the spring.

From seeming death new life will dawn

and in that hope the chimes ring on. 

Though you, my son, now live above

beyond my touch, but not my love,

I, like the chimes, must just hang on

embrace the wind and sing my song. 

                                                                      3/14/25