For All That Was Left Unsaid

 Mom on her 80th birthday - January 1999

For Grief By John O'Donohue

When you lose someone you love,
Your life becomes strange,
The ground beneath you gets fragile,
Your thoughts make your eyes unsure;
And some dead echo drags your voice down
Where words have no confidence.
Your heart has grown heavy with loss;
And though this loss has wounded others too,
No one knows what has been taken from you
When the silence of absence deepens.

Flickers of guilt kindle regret
For all that was left unsaid or undone.

There are days when you wake up happy;
Again inside the fullness of life,
Until the moment breaks
And you are thrown back
Onto the black tide of loss.

Days when you have your heart back,
You are able to function well
Until in the middle of work or encounter,
Suddenly with no warning,
You are ambushed by grief.

It becomes hard to trust yourself.
All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.

Gradually, you will learn acquaintance
With the invisible form of your departed;
And, when the work of grief is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.

Today is the 20th anniversary of my mother Ruth's death and while the raw pain of her passing has lessened over the years, missing her never goes away. Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of her.

This photo was the last one ever taken of her. I am fortunate to have it. It was taken at the Christmas Tea for the residents of the Good Samaritan nursing home in Villisca nine days before she died.

I turned 80 myself this year, so I have a better idea what Mom's last years were like. 

It isn't easy getting old, but it is interesting - and a privilege many don't have.