my heart is heavy and i am lost in a dream.
nothing in life is quite what it seems.
we come to a point or period of time
where it feels we are losing more than we gain.
there is still hope in my life, a small subtle sign
that all is not lost — pockets of joy i see in the pain.
these moments carry me through the quiet days
as waves of sadness come crashing in my soul.
i cannot predict, but i see hints of yesterday
when loved ones were here and physically whole.
now there is an emptiness that i can only fill
with the beautiful memories i treasure still.
i look to the future and in the depth of my heart
i ache for the love lost, for the love i long to impart.

*******

This poem is from early 2011. My writing journey was just beginning, but I didn’t fully realize it for a while. I wouldn’t see or embrace the call to write until much later.

What I did know was this: losing loved ones is hard and death is not the way it’s supposed to be.

My grandmother had passed away a couple of weeks before I wrote this poem. She lived less than a mile away, so she was a big part of daily life…phone calls, spontaneous visits, tea parties in front yards…she showed up in these beautifully, consistent ways.

It wasn’t the first time I had experienced loss, but it was the third loss for our family within a year and half. Of course, my heart was heavy and I needed some way to process the depths of grief. I didn’t know what to do with my emotions.

Poetry offered me space to dig out what I felt. I unearthed many poems that year.

Poetry helped me to define simple dreams. I began to see my words on paper. And my words took me all over the place, through sorrow and sadness. But it didn’t end with pain. God led me to heal and hunger for more writing. And it started with poetry.