Two Years Gone

I miss you terribly, I hate it still - yet, I thank you.

Poem from my poetry book, Excruciating Bliss (available on Amazon)

March 23, 2026 -

I don’t seem to have words for it,

this ache that has borne such beauty.

Warm coffee in hand, Jasper chattering in sing-song downstairs. Amidst toddlerhood and cows and the architecture of a busy life, faint pictures float past of your dainty little hands and girly coos. Oh, how I wish I could remember you more clearly.

I’m left with only textures and a feeling; a tactile, rippling love, and a gigantic, sorrowful mystery. You were here with me, once - a little warm companion strapped to my chest. A giggly, rosy window into heaven. A glittering, celebratory joy too big to be contained.

All at once, I miss you terribly, and hate it still that you’re gone…

Yet, I thank you.

I thank you for the immense blessing brought to me in your wake.

Oh my sweet and mighty girl, you brought me to Jesus - no small feat, no small gift.

In the dirt of grief, I found a priceless pearl, a narrow road, a wedding banquet borne from an invitation I could not see until my eyes looked only up, only up, wondering if you were there too.

Your death changed everything,

How could it not?

I miss you terribly. I hate it still.

I feel it sharply some days, the gnarled ache that crests somewhere in between my heart and my throat, driving by the hospital on the way to breakfast, still, two years later.

The rippling sweet pang that comes when I see your beautiful brother give your photo kisses over and over. Do I dare let my heart wonder how you would have played together? Do I dare imagine a life with you in it?

The wound that your Dad and I share, trading off aching, silent, and significant,
heavy and speechless.

I miss you terribly, and I hate it still,

Yet I thank you, and …

I love you,

I love you

,

I love you,

Always will.