the loss as raw

grace allows us to have

my mind bewares some empathic leaps,
I start to imagine the loss of a child
and I bounce off,
like a finger that has quickly touched a too-hot griddle,

even when a person has lived a full life
and has found the way to let herself go
without any fear we can see,
it’s still hard to know I won’t hear her call my name again,
or laugh, question, tell a story,
or pull me aside for a confidence,

I get the quick terse message that she died in the morning,
and I fuss that I didn’t get any word before then of a quicker slipping,
I don’t have formal clothes with me for the funeral,
a problem I could solve, and did,
more importantly, I found I could see my aunt clearly
and words came to me quickly
that would place her in context as a light,
like the high summer Sun and even surer
the light that was that of God that was within her,
and that Light which she had to let out to blaze brightly,

as I stride to the pulpit to share my words of her and the Light,
I pause and touch the rich brown wood of her casket,
I read and speak to her family and to the body before me,
as I head back to my seat I touch her casket again,












after the Service and at the cemetery, then at the meal,
it’s time to touch each other who also loved her,
with words to console, to remember, to reconnect,
for we still on the earth have time for each other,
to appreciate each other for how well the other loved this great woman,
with touch: the hand, the hug, the kiss on the cheek,

the food is good, the companionship special,

and still I know that each of us will come round a corner sometime before us,
and we will feel her loss as raw,
so that it will seem as if it has just happened,

our feelings make us more than our bodies
but our bodies are the only vehicle
that allows us to live in whatever moments grace allows us to have.









by Henry Walker
June 24, ’11