who so loved
we shared conversation
one night over dinner not so long ago
about 'raising sons'...
and now
he is gone...with his only raised half way...
it's one thing
for thoughts about what we want from life
to become conscious to us
it's another thing
to think of what it will be like when our loved ones go
and another thing
to speak the ruminating fears
and bring those things under the mind of Christ
the first words out of my smiling mouth
when I hugged my hubby
in the after midnight parking lot
two weeks there and back again to and from China
were
"I thought for sure you'd die"
and we laughed
today
our hug lingers
I think I've grown up so
but then I still think like I did
in the early years
fearing
that life is too good
surely I don't deserve this
surely it is imminent that it must all come to an untimely early end
those in between years
when the other is so needed
when you have created family
home
world around each other
and cannot imagine
surviving that existence
without each other
these later years
when you have shared a whole life together
and you know somehow
someday
the beginning of eternity
must be entered into
alone
what will we be like
will we be brave
or fall apart
left alone
certain circumstances lead us to entertain end thoughts
we pray for safe journeys
we pray for speedy recovery from illness
we bless each other
daily
with good-bye's at the door
and I love yous
and yet always unexpectedly the inevitable comes
that was the final good-bye
the last I love you
even when we've lived our whole of life with it
spoken and felt and thought
just under the living
experienced it up close
and watched from afar
as others have had to walk
through the shadow
of His wing
it comes always unexpectedly
and makes us clenche
and clutch
and thank
and take
the next breath
a little deeper
the next hug a little longer
the next glance a little longer
Is it His way
of waking us from the lull of this world
and into living
for eternity
today's reading
....and this is eternal life
that they should know You...
the only true God
John 17:3
He longs for us to just to know Him...
does knowing Him
really make all the difference?
Bill was different....
now
and at the hour of our death
1 comment:
I saw Coach Stewart as he was leaving a concert at the CAC on April 25. We made eye contact. I smiled and put out my hand. He shook it and greeted me as if we were long-time friends. I knew who he was, of course, but he didn't know me from "Eve". That made no difference. We were brother and sister in Christ. May he rest in eternal peace. But then he had already lived the "peace the world cannot give" all the days of his life here on earth.
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