I have many more of the works she sent to me, either for critique or just to share, saved on my computer and on paper.<\/p>\n
For many people who didn’t know Zack and his family, I can imagine they would have found his life to be one that would be dreaded, a life filled with difficulties, hardship, and turmoil because of his disability, but then they wouldn’t have known the Warnocks. I don’t know many families who I can say are as dedicated to each other as the Warnocks, though I know they aren’t unique, as far a families go who have one or more members with disabilities, but in these families, like the Warnocks, who I do know, they are stronger than most because of that dedication.<\/p>\n
Above all that Zack faced, his life was filled with love. He not only received it, but he gave it through his smiles, his twinkling eyes, and his soft giggles. Larina often spoke and wrote about these qualities in him so, though I never met him, I felt as if I knew him. After many days of trying to write something about him for his family and failing, I was directed to his obituary, written by Larina, in their local paper from a link on a website the day before his memorial service. In it, I came across the phrase “shades of joy,” and all became clear to me. These three little words are a perfect characterization of Zack’s personality, and I began to write what turned into a poem with that title.<\/p>\n
It is a simple poem, purposely written in the tone of a child’s nursery rhyme to honor the innocence of childhood, though the tempo of the poem is meant to be read much slower with longer pauses at the commas and line breaks for emphasis, with reverence and tenderness. It is one of the few poems I’ve written in just a few hours that I’ve ever allowed anyone to see before it has gone through many, many revisions over the course of days or weeks, or longer, and the editor and critic in me sees many places where it would benefit from more work, but it is as it is, and it will remain unchanged from how it was when I sent it to Larina.<\/p>\n
I was honored to learn that the minister who presided over Zack’s memorial service opened the sharing segment of it with the poem. Larina wrote to tell me that he did the poem great justice<\/em> and that he seemed to know exactly how I would have read it<\/em>.<\/p>\n
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