Death Knows No Names

There are some things that we believe we are above. 

Things like death. Death is at the top of that list. 

When it never happens to you, 

When it never happens around you, 

To people that you know, 

To people that you love, 

You forget that it’s real, 

You forget that it can happen. 

And so when it comes, it’s a blow to your chest. 

You almost forget to breathe; You’re thinking, “It’s a lie”, “It’s a lie”, but the reality of it is that you’ve lost someone that you love, and because the world has no more miracles, you will never be able to have them back. 

Your memories of them become your gold, you battle with grief and regret because whatever time you spent with them is inadequate. Whatever desire they had that you didn’t grant is a failure, and you simply settle in, and you bask in your hopelessness. 

You discover that you have no power.

You have no say.

I had no understanding of loss.  

To love and to lose to death. 

To sleep, and to dream of old memories that can never be made new…

I cannot grasp this loss. 

For my father,

For her siblings,

For her children, 

For us, her family, 

For me.

Death was a tragedy that lived in houses built by other people.

Death had no name.

It had no place with us. 

We have been humbled and we have been taught. 

It knows no names, 

And knows no households.

It comes and it goes. 

It makes its own choices. 

The price of this choice was steep. 

I don’t have the right words to say. 

This month, and this day, 

We will never forget. Never fully recover. Death comes with pain and grief for the living. 

But for you, 

Our dead, 

May you rest in peace.

 Farewell, mortality, 

Jesus is mine, 

Welcome, eternity, 

Jesus is mine. 

Welcome, o loved and blest, 

Welcome, sweet scenes of rest, 

Welcome, my saviour’s breast, 

Jesus is mine.

 -Fade, fade, each earthly joy. By Mrs. Catherine J. Bonar 

 For Aunty Gloria.