In Japanese, Then English, Deeply Grieving, Heidi, The Death Of Our Friendship Poem by Dennis Ryan

Sunday afternoon, July 15, 2012; revised Monday morning, October 17, 2016 and Thursday night, December 15 at 11: 20 p.m.; again, Monday morning, October 3,2022 at 8: 08 a.m.

'It's hard to listen to a hard, hard heart beating so close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel, walls that I won't climb...'
- Patty Griffin, 'Rain'

'YUU, ure(i) —grief... affliction', p.266; YUU, tomo—friend;
yuujoo—friendship', p.44; HI, kana(shii) —sad; jihi—mercy, compassion, p.113; HITSU, kanara(zu) —without fail; hitsuyoo—necessity; hisshi—inevitable death, desperation, p.114; SHI, death; shi(nu) —to die; shishoosha—casualties', p.59
- A Guide to Reading & Writing Japanese, Revised Ed., Tuttle,1980

Thinking in Japanese today, the following words
suddenly converged, coalesced emotionally in me—
'Wareware... yuujoo...shi...fukaku kanashimu'—
'we', 'friendship', 'death', 'deep grieving'—
'Watashi wa wareware no yuujoo no shi o fukaku kanashindeimasu, Heidi.'
(I am deeply grieving the death of our friendship, Heidi.)
I've been feeling this sentence for some days now,
since after I last heard from you, but didn't know
how to express it until today. You don't understand
now what you did growing up, your wise heart having
grown calculating, self-interested, somewhat unsympathetic,
so here we are, I am today, deeply grieving your loss. I don't
know what to say, am lost for words at this point, but maybe,
someday, we can reconcile. You have always been my favorite niece,
Well, until Katie came back into the picture—then I had two—
but times change, we change; we need adapt to difference—
I can't give you courage; make you into something you're not.