Losing One We Love
A tangle of emotion,
Each moment spent in opposition.
This is losing one we love.
Our new lives roll ahead of us,
A ribbon toward the horizon.
But what once was perceived as smooth,
Comfortably predictable,
Now seems like a knotted cord,
Tangled, moving back, forward,
Wrapped in upon itself.
We move carefully along, feeling our way.
Slowly, and with great difficulty,
We struggle as life happens around us,
Stopping to sort the pain from the pleasure,
The loss from the laughter,
The stillness from the confusion of change.
But this struggle, these tangles we encounter,
Contain priceless gifts.
When we trust this process of grief,
When we surrender to it,
We come to understand that
Each moment of despair
Releases our hearts to hope,
Each moment of doubt
Provides the fertile ground on which to grow our faith,
Each moment of anger
Opens our ears to the murmurs of peace.
2009