Poems

Me, Without You

Categories Poems, The First Year, , , , , , , , ,

Some days I just can’t-

look at your pictures,

listen to your voice,

hold your things,

hear your songs…

Not because I don’t miss you,

but because I miss you so much.

Some days I can-

look in your eyes,

listen to your laugh,

smell your scent,

and sing along-

Because I miss you and

it seems like you’ve been gone so long.

Some days I just can’t

breathe

or even make myself move

the weight of missing you

sits on my chest like a giant rock

and won’t let me up until I sob.

It’s suddenly like we just lost you

and I can’t believe you’re gone.

Some days I can-

go with a friend for a while,

leave my house and shop in a store,

go outside and watch the clouds,

But, even when I do-

I’m always missing you.

Though your death isn’t new

It will never be normal.

The complexities of grief

have made me different.

Which version of me, without you,

will I be today?

Regarding Courage

Categories Poems, The First Year, , , , , , , , , ,

I know what courage is…

I’ve sat in a room and watched my 14 year old hear that she has cancer.

I know what courage is…

I’ve watched children sit still as they’ve been poked, examined, and had to endure hard procedures.

I know what courage is…

I’ve seen parents show up at appointments knowing they were about to be given bad news.

I know what courage is…

I’ve heard Doctors make phone calls to tell people that treatment wasn’t working.

I know what courage is…

I’ve seen nurses who carry the weight of knowing that death is coming, enter a patient’s room with so much compassion and love, and then have to leave to go take care of another patient, while acting like nothing’s wrong.

I know what courage is…

I’ve seen loved ones and friends show up to say their good-byes knowing that they’d probably never see our girl again

I know what courage is…

I’ve heard my own child tell me, she wasn’t worried about what would happen to her after she died, but she was more worried about me and the great sadness that I would feel.

I know what courage is…

I’ve stood beside her casket as it was about to be lowered in the ground and had to get in my car and leave.

I know what courage is…

I’ve walked into her bedroom and smelled her smell, seen her things, read her journal, and somehow managed to walk back out knowing she’d never be in that space with me again.

I know what courage is…

And what I’ve concluded is that dying takes a lot of courage, but living takes more. 

It would be easier to curl up and die with her, but I won’t. 

Courage can’t be ordered, shared, or given.

It’s dangled out in front of us like a choice

And it has to be chosen-in the moment.

Its counter-part is fear.

It screams louder and looks more appealing,

But its fake appeasement only brings with it more foes.

So, every day, I’ll choose courage. 

Courage to feel, deal, and be real- with my grief.

I know what courage is, but sometimes, I wish I didn’t have too.

Kim Taylor

7/9/2021

Is Goodbye Just a Lie?

Categories Poems, The First Year, , , , ,

I’ve been wondering

As I’ve been pondering,

The things that you must know.

Once you’ve stepped through-

Once you break through-

To heaven, now your home.

All the questions

Must be answered.

Now you understand.

How your story,

Your hard journey,

Fit into the plan.

Are you watching

Or Still waiting

To see the seeds

You’ve sown

Tendered in the garden

By those of those of us below?

Do you know the sequence

of what there is to come?

Are you here among us,

Or seeing from above?

Is there just a curtain

That makes us feel apart?

Knowing that you’re nearby

Would greatly bless my heart.

Is “Goodbye” just a lie

That need not to exist?

Do you come and walk beside me?

Are you standing in the midst?

One day I’ll see your smile again.

Until that day arrives-

I’ll keep searching.

I’ll keep looking

Because I know

That you’re alive.

Kim Taylor 4/15/2021

Rise

Categories Poems, The First Year, Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

This time of year is so energizing to me.  The warm sunshine and longer daylight hours keep me looking for outside projects.  When the girls were little, we loved photo shoots by the blooming magnolia tree that was in our yard. The above picture is of my cuties in 2010.  Now, my absolute favorite fragrant viburnum shrubs have started budding and I’m really hopeful that the cold snap that’s predicted won’t keep them from blooming.  I love the scent that they cast right outside our front door.  It’s heavenly to me.  I hope that you also find yourself with a little spring in your step as we watch nature coming back to life around us.

It’s appropriate that we talk about the topic of resurrection as we witness the birth of spring and prepare for the Easter weekend.  It all fits together so perfectly doesn’t it? I know that I touched on this briefly in my post a few weeks ago about the seasons.  If you didn’t get a chance to read that one, you can check it out here.  Speaking from the place of a mother who has a child in heaven, I honestly can’t think of anything more comforting than the resurrection power that we’ve been promised through Jesus.  It’s all because of Easter.  Jesus did what I couldn’t do and He saved my child.  He has saved us too, if we’ve accepted His gift of salvation, we can live out our days knowing that even death won’t keep us in the grave.  I’m so thankful for His life giving power. 

The Holy Spirit has been impressing on me these past couple of weeks that His resurrection power isn’t only for the physically dead.  It’s for those of us who are still breathing, but feel dead inside too.  Grieving certainly has a way of making one feel like they have also died right along with their loved one.  I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to wanting to crawl inside the grave with Sarah.  It hurt to breathe for a while.  Even knowing that Jesus could heal my broken heart didn’t change the fact that I really didn’t want to be healed.  Grief makes us comfortable with the darkness.  The light can just be too much.  So can crowds, or loud noises.   I found myself numb, not really feeling anything most of the time-sort of like a dead person walking. Recently, I really connected with C.S. Lewis thoughts in A Grief Observed:

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief.  Except at my job-where the machine seems to run on as much as usual-I loathe the slightest effort.  Not only writing, but reading a letter is too much.  Even shaving.  What does it matter now whether my cheek is rough or smooth?  They say an unhappy man wants distractions-something to take him out of himself.  Only a dog-tired man wants an extra blanket on a cold night; he’d rather lie there shivering than get up and find one.  It’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy, finally, dirty and disgusting.

Can you relate to that?  Not really caring about your own well-being?  Deep grief leaves you feeling lonely, cold, and dead inside.  Sounds like the tomb to me.  At some point, one has to decide whether or not to live again or stay cold and shivering in the tomb. 

I’ve read about other grieving people “snapping” out of that stage of their grief when they consider what their deceased loved one would want for them.   While that’s certainly moving and I totally know that Sarah is cheering me on; the thing that has really empowered me the last few weeks has been the resurrection power of Jesus.  The more that I get to know Jesus the more I’m learning that He specializes in bringing dead things back to life-including me. 

I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead.  I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!  Philippians 3:10-11

When you’ve lost someone close to you, you’ve certainly participated in some suffering.  Now it’s time to experience the power of His resurrection.  I’m daily asking Him to breathe His life into me, energize me, and give me a purpose.  He’s faithful and willing to make beauty from these ashes.  So many times in scripture we see examples of Jesus taking the broken and making it beautiful.  I know that’s His desire for all of us who have been wounded by grief.  There’s nothing that He can’t revive. Friend, is He calling you to “Rise” too?

Happy Easter everyone!

RISE

In the quiet

Dead on the inside

Still within my grief

You whisper to my broken heart

Rise

Eyes now woke

Tears begin to dry

Inhale the fresh wind

Your breath is healing my lungs

Rise

Your words stir

Rattle my dry bones

As your blood flows

My soul comes alive

Rise

My heart beats

A new rhythm forms

My feet feel the tempo

A dance filled with praise

Rise

Your light shines

Step out of the grave

Made new in your presence

Death is rejected

Rise

Kim Taylor, 3/29/2021

2:00AM Poetry

Categories Poems, The First Year, Uncategorized, , , , , 
We claim, collect, and clutch
As we gather much
Staking our ground
And settling down
In our palace
Like we’re the masters of our manors-
Managing our estates
When we should feel more like tenants
Or do I dare say it- servants?
Who carefully consider every gift,
Every piece,
Every thing,
We’ve been given.
It’s all property
That we’re borrowing
From The King.
Even the very air in our lungs
Can’t be kept.
We inhale one breath
Only to let it exhale
Not knowing how many more
We will be given.
I think it was by design
That we were made incapable 
Of holding it forever.
The Creator knows
That we would try to hoard
Even the life giving oxygen,
If our lungs allowed.
Nothing here is eternal
And the more we try
To age in reverse
And break the curse,
Save the planet-
It just gets worse
As ugly reveals more ugly
AND
We just want it to stop.
Corruption, decay, erosion-
Our earthly kingdoms crumble
Under the weight of sin and time.
Our skin grows thin
And our bones grow dry
As life itself passes by.
Temporary-
That’s all a tent is made for.
Repair, reinforce, patch-
All feeble attempts
To prolong the inevitable.
Temporal-
What if we lived
Like we knew we were dying?
What if every breath,
Every piece of bread,
Every sunrise and sunset-
Were gifts
Meant to be enjoyed
And not expected?
What If our most prized possessions
Were ALWAYS the things
That loved us back
And turned out to not be “things” at all?
What if the stuff we used here
Became tools
Just to manage well 
What the King has chosen you and me
To be in charge of
While He’s away?
This place might feel different
But it was NEVER
Suppose to feel like home.
You see,  
The King IS coming back.
And When He does-
He’ll know how to fix this mess
Once and for all.
Then, and only THEN,
It will finally feel like home.

-Kim Taylor, 3/25/2021, 2:04AM

It’s Silent

Categories Poems, The First Year, , , , , , , ,

Some times just forming words together to describe our grief just helps. I’m not sure why, but it does. Some times those words flow in a journal, in a blog, or form themselves into an attempt at a poem, or even a song. It may only be for myself, but it’s definitely therapeutic. I hope that if you’re grieving too, that you can find an outlet for what you’re feeling. Even in our pain there is beauty because there is love. Sometimes you just need to show that love in a tangible way.