Loss

It has been an entire week since I've last posted. My granddad passed away and we flew to my hometown for the funeral. It was bitter sweet. We saw my family and this time everyone was there. But the occasion for which we gathered was difficult. My grandma said we should be happy because Granddad is in heaven now. I said, "I am happy for him, Grandma, but I'm going to miss him." And that's the crux of it really. When someone with five children, thirteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren passes away, you're not crying for them. You're crying for yourself and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I also cried for my grandma. I can't imagine what it must feel like to lose your best friend, someone whom you've laughed with, fought with, ate with, traveled with, celebrated with, mourned with, lived life with for almost sixty years. They say that if you take a drop of water out of a bucket, it will be as though that drop of water was never there. The rest of the water will simply take its place. I think though, that in this case, this kind of loss leaves a significant hole. I'll be praying for everyone who is feeling this void in their lives.

I'll be returning to my 30 day writing challenge tomorrow.

The Reaper and the Flowers

by 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,
And, with his sickle keen,
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,
And the flowers that grow between.

"Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;
"Have naught but the bearded grain?
Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,
I will give them all back again."

He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,
He kissed their drooping leaves;
It was for the Lord of Paradise
He bound them in his sheaves.

"My Lord has need of these flowerets gay,"
The Reaper said, and smiled;
"Dear tokens of the earth are they,
Where he was once a child."

"They shall all bloom in fields of light,
Transplanted by my care,
And saints, upon their garments white,
These sacred blossoms wear."

And the mother gave, in tears and pain,
The flowers she most did love;
She knew she should find them all again
In the fields of light above.

O, not in cruelty, not in wrath,
The Reaper came that day;
'T was an angel visited the green earth,
And took the flowers away.