This is the blessing
that you prayed
would never come
knock on your door,
dressed in uniform,
to pay its utmost respect
with crushing finality.
This is the blessing
which documents how hope,
so diligently spun,
and intricately hung,
silky radials and orbs,
a place to hide
find sustenance
and rest,
met the broom of death
that disassembled and destroyed
hope’s home.
This is the blessing
that falls short—
no words could encapsulate
the displacement
and despair you felt
that moment
your whole world collapsed
while everything around you
kept expanding.
This blessing, at its best,
can be a pillow
a soft place to weep
for you who live your earthly days
in debt,
having grasped,
rather glaringly
the fragility
of humanity.
For it is you who knows the costly price
of this holiest of sacrifice:
not knowing why
they had to die—
while wrestling the lie
that you are all alone.
You’re not.
This somber day reminds us
of the ones our Saviour left behind.
They, too, felt death’s sting.
They, too, know the gaping hole
love leaves behind.
They, too, were tasked, impossibly,
to roll a heavy stone,
to separate their flesh from His.
But this…
this we know.
The end was not the end at all.
This truth may be the only grace
for commiserates compelled to pace,
outside the stony silence…
The Son did rise!
An empty tomb assurance
for those left behind
that their loved ones are not gone,
they’ve simply gone ahead.
