Sorrow

Early on in my writing career, I wanted to be a poet.

I spent most of my time scribbling phrases in notebooks, turning words over like small stones. Like most enthusiastic young writers, I sent my poems away to various publications, hoping for recognition. I remember my first success—receiving a $25 cheque for two poems. Now, it’s rare that I write anything by hand. And for those of you following along on saints and cigarettes, sharing my poetry tends to take a back seat.

Today, I’m sharing one of those poems with you*.

This past summer, with the passing of my godmother, I’ve started listening again to the old Greek songs of my childhood. The ones that played on repeat in our family home, seeping into the walls, echoing through the rooms long after the record had stopped spinning. Those songs weren’t just music—they were laments. Melancholy melodies that spoke of longing and loss. With so many Greeks leaving for Canada, the United States, and Australia in the late 1950s, these songs of sorrow became etched deep into the psyche of the diaspora. They were expressions of a grief too heavy to be carried alone, stories of separation and resilience.

Last Friday, I found myself spending four hours at the bank, cataloguing the contents of my godmother’s safety deposit box with the branch manager. Five pages later, I had a detailed inventory of what she held most dear. What struck me wasn’t the monetary value of the items, but the meaning behind them. Amongst a few pieces of modest jewellery were her original Greek wedding certificate and the land title deeds to her family home on 7th Avenue. It gave me insight into the suffering she endured while building a new life here, far from the soil where she was born.

She chose to keep pieces of paper over gold or silver—symbols of a life that could have been, reminders of what she left behind. More precious than jewels, these documents carried her memories. And it made me think about one of my first poems.

My poem begins with, “My father told me God's fingers comb away my sins each morning.”

I can still see the faded notebook page. The scrawl of that first sentence, hesitant yet unflinching. At the time, I imagined God’s hand brushing through our wrongdoings like tangles in hair. As if each day’s sins could be straightened out, forgiven, in the time it took for the sun to rise. I didn’t fully understand then what my father was trying to say.

The poem continues, “My father told me when sorrow is born, it needs a human soul to carry.”

At the time, I saw sorrow as something separate from us. Something to be lifted and borne, like an object moved from one place to another. I thought our task was to bear its weight quietly until it dissolved on its own. I didn’t yet understand that sorrow isn’t something to be carried away from us. It’s more like a path to walk, an experience to live through.

Sorrow is not born as a punishment or a sign of weakness.

It’s a reminder of our humanity, of our capacity to feel deeply. It follows love, inevitably, because to love is to be vulnerable to loss. Pain strips life down to its raw essentials, peeling away pretense, forcing us to see what we might otherwise avoid. And with each layer stripped back, we’re left facing our own truths.

The poem’s next line comes back to me often, more so now with my godmother’s passing: “And the deep nets of pain reach out because we are Greek.”

Growing up, my father would repeat those words, as though there was something in suffering particular to being Greek. There’s a history of endurance woven into our bones. An acceptance of hardship, a belief that struggle is what keeps us connected to who we are.

Our ancestors faced hunger, war, and displacement. They learned not to fear pain, but to respect it. For them, pain was a constant companion, and sorrow wasn’t something to be avoided or numbed. It built in them a capacity to survive, to withstand, and when possible, to thrive.

That capacity to endure is passed down, generation to generation. I felt it in my own life, watching my godmother navigate hers. How she made do, how she protected the fragile fragments of her past—kept safely in a box, guarded like treasure. It’s not just about what we endure, but how we choose to remember. And my godmother chose to hold on to the papers that meant something to her. The deeds, the certificates, proof of a life left behind and a life rebuilt.

The final lines of that old poem are punctuated with pain —“Broken dishes and broken bones and using scissors to cut my heart—are part of the sounds of life.”

When I was young, those words felt dramatic, heavy.

Now, I see them as simple truth: life is full of breaking.

We are constantly broken open by the things that hurt us. Sometimes it’s our bodies—bones shattered and bruised. Other times, it’s our hearts, cut and split by grief, loss, or the endless complexity of our relationships. But those breaks, those cracks, are where the light comes through. They’re what make us human.

In the Orthodox Christian faith, sorrow is not hidden or denied. It’s part of the order of things, as natural as birth or death. When someone dies, we say “Memory Eternal.” When a baby is baptized, the priest asks for forgiveness on behalf of the child. It’s understood that the world can be harsh, that sorrow will come, and that we are meant to carry it together.

These days, when sorrow visits, I don’t look away. I remember what my father told me—that carrying sorrow isn’t a burden. It’s an honour. Because when sorrow is born, it changes us. It asks us to carry it, yes. But more than that, it asks us to carry on.

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*My father told me

My father told me 

God’s fingers

comb away

my sins each morning

My father told me

when sorrow is born

it needs a human

soul to carry

and the deep nets

of pain 

reach out 

because we are Greek 

My father told me

broken dishes

and broken bones 

and using scissors

to cut my heart 

are part of the sounds

of life.