I believed we’d live out this life together.
I look at your picture-bright blue eyes brimming with adventure,
Your passion for life glowing purposefully from within.
A beautiful soul of love and trust, hope was your anchor.
You knew tomorrow would always be a brighter day;
A nature child who loved to walk in the woods and swim in the rain.
You felt a kindred spirit in every living thing,
Whether it was human, animal or something from the natural world.
You beheld every sunrise as a unique painting created by angels;
You, my muse, my purpose, my true love.
I trusted that we’d be together, that youth overcame
Hardship, disappointment and sickness.
I knew in my heart that a loving God would never take another of my children.
But I was wrong. He took you.
At first the devastation forged rivers of anger, disbelief and mistrust to my core.
Why were two of my children buried side by side in a graveyard,
When children are the lights of parents’ hearts, the promise
That elderly parents wouldn’t spend their final years alone?
My anger became despair; a sadness so deep
That I had to distract myself minute by minute so that I wouldn’t give up.
I had to fight to be there for my only child left to live out this pain with me;
Now the only child with no siblings to confide in, laugh with or grow old with.
My only child trying to raise a child of her own, putting on a mask of bravery every day,
When her soul is ripped to pieces right along with mine.
I knelt before God, asking why? Why again?
I heard an answer in my heart. “I understand. I too lost my son. My only child.”
I was reminded of a passage of scripture:
There is a time for everything under the sun. A time for mourning, a time for dancing,
A time to sow and a time to reap.
And then, like a golden thread weaving through my consciousness,
Hope stirred within me as I perceived the understanding that
The Lover of my soul is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.
When darkness comes to call, I know the battle has already been won.
All things will work out for good. I need only trust, hope and believe.
An easy earthly life is not promised, but an abundantly blessed eternal life is.
Glory be to God!
