Rebirth

 

When someone special passes away,

It’s always hard to find words to say.

I guess the One that says it best

Is the Lord with Whom we all are blessed.

 

For it is He who decides how long we stay

And when we are to be called away.

Though we may not quite agree,

His reasons are greater than we can see.

 

For those who believe in the good Lord’s works,

Death is not death, but an exciting rebirth.

Sorrow is only for us left behind,

Who cannot imagine His great design.

 

In His words we can find the hope

That gives us strength each day to cope.

Once our trust is put in Him,

It is then the pain begins to dim.

 

In the setting of our grief aside,

Our hearts and minds are opened wide.

We rejoice in our loved one’s heavenly gain,

And hope one day to have the same.

 

JK   1996

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After the Funeral                        

Friends and flowers have gone away

Or are fading fast beside the grave.

The sweets and meats have come and gone,

Everything’s passed except the pain.

Days are long and nights longer.

Composure is harder to maintain.

The pangs of loss are getting stronger.

Blessed numbness is now replaced

By something uglier to be faced.

The tears and fears are creeping in

With second-guessing not far behind.

Could anything different have been done?

Death is guilty, while Love is blind,

But there are no answers, not a one.

With every brutal breaking dawn

Comes the recall that they’re gone.

The cares and scares surge through your heart,

But Time will take its trudging toll,

And God Himself will make His move,

Slowly healing your suffering soul,

While dulling days gradually soothe.

If we could but cheat the clock

Turn it back before the shock,

The sorrow of tomorrow foiled,

Or speed it forward through the grief,

Our hearts no longer haggard,

Our minds racing rashly toward relief,

Bouts of bereavement more staggered…

Ah, it would be so convenient,

If sadness was more lenient.

An imprudent student before the  teacher,

We squirm and fuss with “whys?” and complaints,

But our learning is rich and our growing great.

We are shaped by the pain, as were the saints,

Our saving grace is our hard-earned faith.

JK  February 1, 2003

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Alzheimer’s                               

 

You are there, and then you’re not.

Sometimes you are sort of there.

Glimpses of you…                 

    the you of your youth.

                  The you I’ve known.

                  The you only God knows.

                  Almost never the you of yesterday,

                  Just the you of many years away.

 

I miss you, then you return.

Somehow your soul seems free

To come and go…                 

    like a bird returning to the same tree,

                Landing each time on a different branch.

                The branch of anxieties past.

                The branch of childhood trust.

                The branch of remembering us.

 

Random slices of a life we shared,

Sandwiched between quiet and eruptive moments

Of nothingness…                 

    nothing that resembles you,

               Nothing that I can do,

               Nothing but an empty look,

               Confusion as to what comes next,

               Or passed before you were vexed.

 

Why does God let your spirit come and go,

While you are still physically with me?

All I really know…                 

    is that our brief encounters are soul to soul.

              Time has lost all dimension.

              Death has lost all definition.

               I have learned already how to grieve,

               Just as surely as you still breath.

 

It has become clear as I watch you flicker that,

I, too, am struggling with letting go

Of this world’s rules…   

    Solace is not in memories.

                Hope is not the future.

                Now is not where we always live.

                Death is not the only taker.                 

                And Truth, itself, a faker.

 

I now am practiced at letting go,

These the lessons God has given me.                 

Cling not too tightly….    

     to anything of this world.

               Here and Gone are shuffled together.

               No matter where you cut the deck,

               Only the King of Kings will allow you

               A draw of lasting value.                 

                                                                                                                                                                                JK May 5, 2001

 

 

 

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                                        Easter Grief

Nothing can lift the viscous veil of grief,

Like the miracle of Easter.

Our Savior’s flight from lonely tomb,

His casting off of thorny wreath,

His promise of an afterlife,

To save us from our earthly doom.

Death is no longer the final belief.

We know our loved one will prevail.

While glum we wallow in our gloom,

Like a sword fitted to its sheath,

They find their place up in heaven,

Now far beyond the loam they loom,

Anxious to cut their celestial teeth,

And grow their wings of seraphim

By saintly duties to assume.

Their love for us they still bequeath,

As patient saints they wait and watch,

Remembering to save us room.

JK

April 4, 2007 & March 19, 2008

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Loneliness

It is there; it has always been there,

   since the first breath of life spun us out into our own corporal capsule.

It is in the baby’s panicked shriek

  when he awakes to single consciousness too abruptly.

Then mother’s warm arms and voice assure him

   that the rude dawning is abated for the moment.

In early childhood it can come crashing through you,

  when suddenly you turn and mom is not there, lost instantly in the crowd.

The old panic comes pushing up again, as the world turns about you without her;

  it gushes forth from you in loud screams and sobs.

When she is found again

  your heart can start to recover spastically, but your memory is forever marked.

Loneliness is always lurking like an undercurrent waiting to well up

  until it rolls upon certain waking moments creating a tsunami.

Grief has a way of stirring it up in huge portions;

  even when surrounded by family and friends, it cuts us off, alone in our anguish.

It especially likes to visit in the moments before sleeping and just after waking,

  when the realization of our temporal condition is keenest.

Life keeps it thriving with us as we reach our greatest years here,

   and each loss of a loved one heaps more of it upon us.

In the end we are fighting to keep it at bay,

  the ebb tide is brimming with piranhas as well, to gobble our dearest memories.

Loneliness is the curse of birth,

   the cross of this life we all drag with us.

There is but one respite, one comfort, one constant companion to draw upon,

   the One who drug His Cross for us.

JK           February  26, 2002