A poem I wrote to bid my father farewell

My rabbi - well, okay, my father's rabbi, really, but I'll claim him - asked me to write a poem for my father to use at his funeral. I'm no poet, but I wrote this despite my lack of skill.

Silence echoes in his house.
In the spaces between my childrens' play
The shouts and squeals of silly games
His chair sits empty, quiet, still.

His voice is silenced in the end.
I knew it would happen, but still
I am surprised and slightly left adrift
Without knowing that his mind is there.

His story has been written.
I do not know if he would prefer
A chance to revise, rebuild, restore
But I can say that his life was enough
To know - his life was a tribute
To everything he believed in,
In success, in failure...
To life.

I recited that today, in front of his peers and friends from generations, his oldest and most recent friends. After that, we went to his final resting place and laid him to rest, and I recited the Kaddish for him. It was what he had wanted.