Tag: death

The night before

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry3 Comments

Tonight
is the night before I lost you, dearest,
two years ago
when you burst from my womb
and were launched straight into Heaven.

Two years ago tonight,
it was Michealmas
and perhaps your passing the next day
was accompanied by him–
this warrior angel
this strong protector—
to carry you on high
in arms safe and loving as your daddy’s.

Great angel,
protect my spirit now
and give me the courage to face the night,
knowing what tomorrow brings.

Help me be brave enough
to feel the pain of loss
yet again,
ever still,
but also to live with the simplicity of my children
who know how to rejoice in each moment
and sing Christmas carols with gusto
no matter what the season.
Sufficient for the day
is the joy thereof.

Holy Saturday

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry4 Comments

  
Day of silence

Of exhausted aftermath

Of unbelief

Can it really have happened??

The strangeness of life continuing 

Just as it had before

Yet—on the inside— 

Earth-shatteringly different 

Every mother who has lost a child 

Knows this feeling

In the core of her soul

In her hollowed-out heart

In her empty aching arms

The day after death

For most of us

The long wait for reunion

For resurrection

Lasts a lifetime

One long Holy Saturday 

Until death breaks the silence

And we hear our babies laugh

To endure this day

Stay close to the mother of the one they pierced

No sorrow deeper

No love stronger

No patience more graceful

Than that of the one who spent that Holy Saturday

Weeping tears of hope

Good Friday

On By Anna EastlandIn Photos, Ponderings5 Comments

Today I want to tell you about my sorrow
But words catch like thorns in my throat.

    
Today we mourn the loss of someone we love deeply. Today there are no words. Only tears. And so for all who have lost someone they love deeply..heart of their own heart, flesh of their own flesh, I offer you my silent company. I mourn with you. I weep with you. And I hope with you. The hope of one who has been broken-hearted and again seen the dawn. 

  

Into Eternity

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry5 Comments

For you I would enter the dark waters 

Extinguish myself

For you

Give all

So said the Voice to the tiny speck

Floating the the vastness of the universe

And the little speck

Overcome with sheer joy

Burst into flame

And lit up the entire universe 

With a flash of love

Uncontainable

Entering by this exchange of love

The realm of eternity 

Wounded Heart

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry2 Comments

God’s heart broke open 
when we chose to leave it,
bursting through walls of warmth
meant to nurture,
but misperceived as barriers to freedom. 

Out here in the windswept world
where many wander alone,
each their own god
confusedly crashing into each other,
our hearts are often wounded 
—and burst open— 
red mouths gaping with sorrow.

Who can understand our pain?
Who can heal our shattered souls?
Is there one who has suffered like us,
and survived? Yet more…has triumphed?

Go to Him.

His heart is open still
yearning with the vulnerable expectation of love…
Will you have the humble courage 
to enter? 

  

Stardust

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry4 Comments

If it’s true that we are dust

and that from the moment of birth

we are heading towards death,

then are not all our words

like a dying breath—

an exhalation of hope

that our voices will be heard

after we’re gone?

Like the light of stars

shining for years,

sending light across the universe

long after the star has burnt out.

Are we perhaps,

though weak and frail,

yet destined for eternity,

little flurries of stardust?

A Quiet Remebrance Day

On By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, HomeschoolLeave a comment

  

This year we had a quiet day at home and missed the parade as our newest recruit is only 9 days old, and I wasn’t up to marching anywhere yet. Instead we read some articles about Remembrance Day, such a the D-day memories of a 90 year old veteran, who joined up at age 15. We also read the fictional journal entries of a young British WW1 soldier as he joined up and experienced his first months in the trenches, followed by losing his leg and his close friend, Private Harry, and travelling back home to share the news to Harry’s mother. 

In both things we read, there was the contrast between the young idealistic hopes of a short, heroic experience of war, and the reality of a long, painful and ugly struggle.  The kids felt sad for these young soldiers, and my five year old declared quite a few times that she did not want to go to war, and that we would never let our new baby boy do so!

 

We talked about the generosity of these men who were willing to give up their lives to protect others, and how grateful we should be to them. In the past we have visited the war monuments in the graveyard, and taken time to discuss the sadness of war and to pray for the soldiers and their families. I remember being very moved by the tombstone of a very young soldier who died serving in the bicycle brigade. Imagine…so vulnerable! 

 

366 days ago I wrote a draft of a post entitled “We Lost the Littlest Soldier.” Remebrance Day last year was only 42 days after I lost Josephine in labour, so my pain was very raw, and I was still bumping into neighbourhood acquaintances who innocently asked me that horrible question, “Where’s the new baby?” Tears came easily at the Remebrance Day Ceremonies that year.  

 

No matter how old our children are when we lose them, they are still our babies. My heart goes out to all parents who have lost their children to war. My you be strengthened by the memory of their courage, and by the sure hope of seeing them again, in the land beyond pain, beyond suffering, beyond anything but peace and the knowledge that we are all, no matter where we come from, precious children of God.  

 

Born of Hope

On By Anna EastlandIn motherhood, Poetry, Stillbirth10 Comments

Sweet mother

pray for me

in this time

when more than ever

I need hope.

You know what it is 

to lose a child

without letting your hope be whipped away

by winds of despair.

You know what it is

to love again

to love still

to be courageous enough

to be vulnerable.

We are all

in a way

your rainbow babies.

Born of the sorrow of your heart

on losing Jesus.

Born of the intense burst of love

that broke out of your heart

that day at the foot of the cross

  

when beauty shone through your tears

like sunbeams pouring from a steely sky

making rainbows flicker

in the maternal tenderness

of your eyes.

Help me hope again!

Help me trust again!

May I be a courageous mother like you

brave enough to believe

I will soon hold my little boy

breathing this time

Alive!

in my arms. 

A Cloak of Starlight

On By Anna EastlandIn motherhood, Poetry, Stillbirth, Writing2 Comments

I go outside for a walk in the dark garden,

only two bare feet to hold up my heavy heart,

and after the warmth of the concrete driveway

surrender to the melancholic cool of the evening grass.

In the stillness of dusk

amid the silent flowers,

the sadness for my lost little love 

wraps me about like a cloak of starlight

poignant and piercing.
    
I hurry inside

to capture this poem,

preserve this tear like a crystal jewel 

and offer it to you, Jo,

the one whom I can give nothing

but the pangs of love.

Parched Grass

On By Anna EastlandIn Poetry1 Comment

  
It’s such a hot summer that I don’t know

which flowers to bring you

Everything dries up so fast

gets parched and wrinkled in the heat

and there’s enough death already 

in the graveyard

There should be a stone at least

shiny and beautiful at first

with simple eloquent words in your memory

nestled in the grass ever more cosily and 

eventually getting dusty and scratched

But I hesitate

and hover over your small grassy mound 

like hot air unable to settle

unwilling to take that last step

lay the last stone

and seal the tomb with the stone which 

forever silently repeats the word “goodbye”