Hoisan Family Monument LINC Island SL
My father died on April 18th, when I was twelve years old. This is the first poem I have ever written about that, and it is more than a few decades later. Every April since, I have felt like I might write something…and then I never do. It was time.
What does this have to do with SL? On my sim, LINC Island, I have made a family memorial and this is what is engraved on my father’s side. Through the wonders of our virtual world, I can lay flowers on his grave, even though I am thousands of miles away from where he is buried, and this year I will also place this poem.
Please take the time to click on the .mp3 link entitled April 18th by Karima Hoisan.mp3.
I composed the music for this too. Maybe enjoy is not the right word, but I hope you can feel this one, and I am sure some might even relate.
April 18th by Karima Hoisan.mp3
You once whispered this to me,
“We will have eternity,
so dry your tears,
and while you’re waiting,
live your life my daughter,
then come and talk to me.”
So much time has run behind,
my questions I had saved to ask
are not the ones, I had that day, when I was twelve
and you were lowered down into the ground.
But then you came to me in dreams,
You said, “Don’t touch me, I’m not yet real.”
I hover here because you are so young
and I am sorry I could not stay to see you grow.
So some days, I feel the bleak is calling out,
I feel tired of it all, and I miss you as if you’d died last night,
and eternity seems a long way off, an endless wait
and in some ways, I’m still that little bud too fragile.
Life has showered me with wild flowers
and sometimes bathed my hopes in hopeless rain.
An adult, I can still see the road that brought me here,
so I write new questions I would like to ask you on that day.
Does a girl ever grow up, if her father is not there to see?
Is she not a tree in the forest of first love’s loss, falling and no one hears her?
and history shifts to what it was not going to be
and really, as I get older, it’s getting harder for me to wait to see you.
I try not to cry, when someone stands in front of me and says your name.
I know that it’s approaching, that time, when once again I’ll be your little girl.
I want to tell you my mistakes, what made me laugh and why I was still crying.
To sit upon your lap and then, Oh Daddy!
all the time in the world is what you promised me.
Karima Hoisan
April 14th, 2013
Rest In Peace, LINC Island
Digital Rabbit Hole 
Oh Karima! This is so powerful! It left me a little empty and speechless. The voices, the music and especially the words. Yes! The questions…the questions…notebook stacks of questions.They become more numerous as the years pass. Will they get answered? Is an eternity long enough to answer them all? ?Quien sabe? But I DO know this…Much of who you are, is because of your father. He would be infinitely proud of you. What you have accomplished, your compassion for humanity and a better world, your passion, your profound abilities as a writer and poet, and most of all, your moral fortitude. This one is a gem, and speaks for many as all of your writings seem to do.
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Hi Hoyt, thank you so much for this beautiful comment. To be honest I was unsure about if I should post it, then just decided…it was okay. I think my dad’s death left me (as they used to say) so shell-shocked I couldn’t think of a thing to say for 30+ years. I went through lots of different typical stages, which I know is “normal” (I was mad at him for years for dying etc etc) but I could never write the poem..This is just one small detail, I managed to capture, but it’s a real one, and he used to say “A promise made is a debt unpaid” so now…..he owes me Eternity:) Inshallah and I’m holding him to it….
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Most definitely something I can feel, Karima, and I know many others will also, so beautifully expressed. Even losing my parents as an adult, there are still so many questions I realize I want to ask, so many things that are different because they are not here. And the hope of being that little child again, for a moment or eternity…
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Thank you Dale, kindred soul, it means a lot you could relate, as now I think it was a good idea to post it. Yes I could write a book of questions..and throw it out and write another, The older I get, the more I like the idea of watching a transcendental sunset and holding hands in silence…as you say, words only point to the Truth, but can’t describe it:)
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This touched me deeply, dear Karima.
The lines: “and in some ways I’m still that little bud too fragile.”
And “Life has showered me with wild flowers
and sometimes bathed my hopes in hopeless rain,”
all in the framework of talking to your father and from where the questions still arise! Wow!
Hugs you tight~
Beautiful~
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Aww Luna, yes I am sure it did. See?, weeks later and years later..somehow it is the same.. Time doesn’t heal..it distracts a bit at best..but these losses stay open..and at any moment make us weep. You are a poet, your father will live inside of you, even if you don’t write one more poem for him…he will help you find the words for all the others…:) Hugs you tight.
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So very moving and pure. What a great remembrance of a father taken much too soon.
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Thank you Spiral…I hope you had a chance to listen to it. I tried to capture the random sounds of notes blowing, like wind-chimes made from wind feeling. Thank you for dropping by and leaving your comment:)
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Well…. this beautiful poem leaves me nearly speechless.Brings to heart those lost to me. Yes your father left too soon…. but perhaps the space he left in you when he departed so long ago, has created the magical vortex in you that creates from such depth. There in the deepest part of your heart, your father is cherished…. and how beautiful is that?
This poem touched me deeply. Makes me want to go deep inside and maybe find something of my own parents, long ago departed. Loved the music, it too touches deeply… and your voice, you are a seductress.
You never cease to amaze me Karima… your multifaceted creative genius just continues to flow like a fountain of rainbow filled Light… even your pain touches so deep that something of meaning is released. And we are blessed.
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Dearest of friends, of all the people that might be able to read this, only you can remember on a sunny day so many years ago, when I told you (very excitedly and in peace) a dream I had once again where my father came and promised me eternity (“all the time in the world”) This thread, the fact you know me in my “atomic life form’ makes your comment on this one for me very special and from a unique point of view too. Thank you for all the positive things you saw and felt here, and if I do spark you to dig deep and create something that touches on your own departed parents..well wow Jan, that is the best of compliments. Big hugs and love my cherished Artist! .So happy we have known each other forever:)
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