Monday, May 29, 2023

Carried On

     Today is Memorial Day. It is a time for remembering the servicemen who died defending our freedom, and I do not want to detract from that focus. The fallen should never be forgotten. But it is also a time we think of others we have lost. Today we gathered with what family we could, ate steak and homemade ice cream, talked and laughed together. Amidst all these good things, like a wreath atop a headstone, today was both beautiful and sad.  
 
          Carried On

If these are the times when
the "Footprints in the Sand" poem
says you are carrying me,
why can't I be unconscious
or, at least, asleep?
 
Because it feels like 
I am plodding through loss,
carrying my son's body
on my own back, and my 
heart was already heavy, Lord.
 
I know you could 
take this sorrow from me
as easily as you carried
his spirit to heaven, 
and I'd be free of its burden.
 
But I would not be healed.
Healing comes from feeling
the weight of my grief,
the depth of my love,
my hunger for heaven. 
 
Maybe the times you carried me
are something I can only see
looking back at days long gone,
times when everything in me
wanted to stop--but we carried on.

             5/29/23
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 


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