Streams of Comfort

This week I wanted to share two poems inspired by my own family. The two people in my life, other than my mother, that have had the largest impact on me. My grandmother was my rock. Her unwavering faith in Jesus and God’s promises helped shape my own growing up. She was the brightest light that could talk to anyone and make them smile. My father was a more complicated figure. Mostly absent since I was 3. Still, even at a distance, he shaped parts of me, for better or for worse. Both of them have passed. So far away, yet their words and actions will remain with me for the rest of my life. I pray for those that have lost loved ones. May God hold your heart through those moments of brief, squeezing pain. May you smile knowing you’ll see them again one day.  

To my grandmother:
Soft, frail arms wrap around your weak frame.
We didn’t look like much, standing in the pouring rain.
As the droplets spilled around us, we breathed in each other’s love.

When the rain subsided, you were still holding me.
Words of wisdom for eternity you whispered.
I wasn’t even sure you were real, or how blessed I was.

Your songs still fill my ears in the hardest times.
Your laughter still fills my heart in the hardest times.

You, made of carbon and oxygen, with a resolve of steel.
Suffering through a life most could never heal.
Still you danced, twirling away the troubles.
Still you prayed, laying them at His feet.

I know I can never be like you.
Oh light that lit up so many lives.
Your smile could move nations and neighbors.
So blessed was I, that I got to see you shine.

I miss you, as my tears fall, like the rain.
The water that wants to embrace you once more
As you did me.
It and I have no where to go.
A river with no path to the ocean and a heart yearning for you.

I know that we’ll see each other again.
On the other side of eternity.
Where you won’t be a light in the darkness anymore.
You’ll be a light come home.
Alice R 10/19/22

To my father:
Words of reassurance for you
Calm knowledge for you.
Strength in a bottle for you.
Little was I when I saw you breaking apart.
The air eagerly leaving your lungs like a race.
To strangers whose air was also racing, the words were simple, smooth.
It happens, it happens, it passes.
Little was I when I discovered those words don’t apply to you.
Not in my heart.
You were sickly, but I could say nothing.
You were wasting away and I couldn’t even say I love you.
So easy are the words when it happens, just not to you.
In my heart, I do hope. As you once taught me to.
Alice R, 9/13/22