Since You Went Away

I wrote this in May of 2004, in tribute to Grandma Margaret, my husband's grandmother. It was our first Mother's Day without her.

Since you went away


So many things are different since you went away....
I hear the bluster of the winds of change more every day.
I can face that fact and grasp its harsh reality,
but that doesn't make it any easier for me.

That's the thing about life that grieves me to the core;
just when I get used to life, it changes some more.
The people that we hug today may be gone tomorrow,
the paths that we walk upon may soon be too faint to follow.

And even though this life may seem strange-
you now walk with our Lord who will never change
He is always the same, no shadow of shifting in Him
His love is perfect and without whim.

So when memories of you come to mind as they often do,
I think of things you said to me or that I said to you.
I see your face in pictures that I took over time:
how I wish life had a remote so I could rewind......

The other night I dreamed you came back to speak with me;
I asked you about heaven and how it's going to be.
I told you I felt so blessed to talk to you that way
and I asked you time and again, "are you sure you can't stay?"

In the blink of an eye I understood that it had been a dream
but I had even touched you, oh how real it did seem!
I looked across the street to the house sitting vacant and still....
my heart felt even emptier than the house ever will.

Sometimes when I glance over, I still think I see you there....
smiling and watching as little children play without a care.
Maybe you are there- really, maybe I just can't see
that you will live on in all of us, until we join you in eternity.