death

My heart breaks in a whole new way. 

Your heart, Aunt Susan, is whole again.

I ask, Oh God, for Your grace and mercy,

for the binding of my broken heart. 

The gradual silence, I now hear loudly,

from the long, slow, goodbye.

The mourning,

a long-time companion, 

may I finally let go?

The many things that used to be,

I hold now in my memory.

Her mind went first, 

now the spirit's gone

with the soul along.

I miss you. 

The innocence bubble popped when my dad died. He was never coming home again. I was eleven years old. Then a new, different normal began. 

I remember realizing when in college, I had lived half my life with my father on earth and half with him in heaven. Correspondence with my grandmother gave me insight into my dad. She couldn't get him to do a thing. It wasn't until LOVE came to him, in the form of my mother, did she see him DO the things she could never motivate him to do. LOVE is a force. GOD IS LOVE.

Thinking with a clear mind, set free from the dark demons of depression, this is a strange experience indeed. I asked the LORD the day before to use the dynamite power of Jesus Christ's Name to blast away all the ruts my mind used, those thoughts which perpetually were making up defenses and excuses to explain myself. The accusations would come in familiar-sounding voices and yet completely disconnected from the person. What a ventriloquist the enemy puppets? I've allowed his residence for so long, no more.

I remember.

I remember the lights.

Red,

Rotating,

Shining through the lowered window shade

At night.

No siren.

I heard

Through the wall

My top bunk

His queen-sized headboard

Separated only by the wall.

I remember his breathing,

A repetitive pain,

In sync

With the rhythm

Of his heartbeat.

His breathing shallow.

I remember his sound

An enduring-through-suffering expression.

No complaint.

No “why me?”

No words.

"Laura."

Hearing my mother say my name, unexpectedly brought tears to my eyes.

Hearing my name, not Sweet, or some other euphemism.

I pray in reading this poem people will believe in Jesus Christ, the Savior, and no longer fear death or dying.

Tide coming in as the sun came up.

What surprise had I to find a Monarch butterfly

On the shores of Emerald Isle,

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