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<\/figure>I think most of us, if not all of us, yearn for some kind of connection. We search for connection with place, connection with other people, family and strangers. Sometimes what we have is so frighteningly tenuous, sometimes so sturdy. I wrote this poem during a time of connection disruption in my own family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over time I have been so very fortunate to work with a range of people in many different settings. I couldn\u2019t have planned it any better. Working in a state psychiatric hospital for a few years I got to know people receiving treatment for many illnesses in a variety of situations, and those people in turn shared with me some of their deepest thoughts. I worked with people in hospice receiving care in their homes and readying themselves for what may to some seem like the ultimate disconnection, death. I also had the opportunity to get to know people from different socioeconomic situations, various cultures and religions and places of origin. Many people I visited in their homes, and I took in a lot about connections, disconnections and reconnections. People filled with grace and courage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My last twenty work years were spent as a fourth-grade teacher. Again, how could I have been so fortunate? I loved my job! I had the opportunity to get to know so many children and their families, what a web. One way the connections were revealed was through the poetry written by these earnest 10-year-olds. They described their families and how they all got along. They wrote about their favorite places, their feelings, the sports or activities they did, their grandparents and how they felt when their dog died, when their older sister went away to school. These poem connections were at once profound, deep and thoughtful, and also sometimes humorous, intentionally and not. They also were simple and commonly shared. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not everyone has the relationships, or the wherewithal to get back to the place they started, even if they are lucky enough to know where that was. However, with poetry and new connections, people of all ages can learn to make and carry with them what they need and want, through transition times, times that are stable as well as times that are made of loss and change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n