The Nature of Loss and My Brain

I sat alone, staring at the tiled floor beneath my feet as the thought finally hit me, “I miss you."

It has been more than a couple weeks since someone near and dear to me has passed away, and today is the first time this thought has crept into my brain.

This person was my aunt and she is survived by a husband and 3 children. There is no way I would ever be so selfish as to presume that my missing of her should ever take precedence over her immediate family.

Even so, I sat with my family, I watched movies and boatloads of food be bused into my dad's house all day by other families who just wanted to help. I ate, they ate, and we all gained 5 pounds in those days.

I was sad, but not because of my own loss, if it can be called that. 

I was sad, scared and felt utterly lost for my family who was immediately affected. 

Days passed, then weeks and now, finally, I can see hope beginning again in my mind, and returning to the faces of everyone around me. Hope for their own lives, hope for today, hope for the future. 

This might have been all that I needed, a prerequisite to be satisfied before I could think that "I miss you".

There is hope, and my family will persevere, which is why, without tears, without pain, but with a slight longing, 

I think in a whisper: "I miss you".

For Those Who Walk

Circumstance tries to dictate that what we've been dealt is defeat
But as I hear His laugh reverberate from the throne
Whispering in the winds and rattling the mountains
I hear only victory.

Not even in death is there defeat.

As we gather, Your fire stirs
The ground begins to shake
and the earth, removed.

No pain
No hurt
No grief
Can stand up
to Your mighty name.

I wear this fire
like the clothes on my back.
Nothing will douse Your love, Your grace

Not pain
Not hurt
Not grief
Not death.

This ‘mountain’ before us is merely a mound of sand
That will flatten under the weight of [ Y ]our arrival.

Earth movers
Ground shakers
Mountain splitters
and Giant slayers
Be not silenced

But fill the air
With praise
And the sky
With fire.