We Miss Them

    It was such a simple post on a friend's Facebook to evoke so many tears. It seems like sometimes tears are stored there in my emotion Cloud account, waiting for enough provocation to fall. The picture was just a couple sitting side by side, his with the angel wings. Susan lost her husband months ago, years perhaps, probably even before we lost Tracy. A cynical Christian might see the wings as bad theology, people do not become angels. But for those of us who don't get our theology from Facebook, wings are shorthand for showing which person died. The wife's picture says, I miss you. The husband's says, I know. There are days, hours, minutes where the loss and longing are stronger, the emptiness harder to ignore, the plan of God harder to accept. For me there is a battle between my beloved logic, my confident faith, and my hurting heart. So from that simple post, this simple poem.

                   We Miss Them

 There are so many reasons not to want them back

                here on Earth with us --

                the sin and suffering of this world,

                the splendor of heaven,

                the certainty that we will see them again

                and never be parted.  

    

 But none of that changes

               the ache in our hearts,

               because we miss them.

               We miss them.

                       8/14/24