A Journey Into a Grief Observed

A journey travelled together,

One that unites us in our grief,

This sojourn into eternity,

Bears no constancy of relief.

Bridging the chasm of loss,

Seems quite impossible now,

As we consider what’s ahead,

For what life is about to endow.

Beautiful baby of ours,

Alive as we speak,

Beautiful baby of ours,

To think life now’s your peak.

Hard as that is to imagine,

We have to hold on to peace,

Somehow we will be able,

To loosen our grasp to release.

Into God’s sweet hands,

Your life will inevitably go,

We are God’s humble servants,

In faith it’s peace you’ll know.

For us left behind,

We will cherish you,

We will honour every day,

And hold your memory true.

***

On any given day it is hard to know what to feel, but God’s sweet peace – which is inexorably indefinable – is ours. I can tell my wife shares this peace, which is tinged with a sense for resignation that would be utterly despairing if it were not for God, our Saviour.

We know that we will hold our baby, warm in our arms. We know that our baby will not respond in the way a life would respond. We know we will be heartbroken. We will be pushed to the point of having nothing left than tears. Tears will merge into tiredness and we will rest, albeit with spirits in cosmic unrest. We know, and yet we also know that God will heal us.

God will open up our hearts as in a tin can and others’ love will pour into us.

God’s Spirit will fill us where we are empty, and where there are times of abject emptiness that seems as though our Lord is not answering, we may know that our Sovereign is giving us ever more space to absorb the gravity of the moment.

The days will slow, and the hours will be like days. We will be haunted by things we cannot, for a time, resolve.

We will also be given the opportunity to experience what many, many human beings experience – the reality of loss in a world that does not handle loss very well.

We have a chance, and the opportunity, to be real, to be awake, to the reality. We are preparing, but there are only so many preparations that can possibly be made.

Of course, we thank you, most sincerely, for your love and your prayers!

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.