when all that's before my eyes is a sparkling darkness, cruel and stimulating, the silence - then I know I've come to my own crossroad.

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I wonder how you know about me anymore, beyond space as you are. do you? are you watching over us? or are you right here with us? or are you in our hearts living in each of us? or can we only remember you as you appear, penned in by four silver lines of a picture frame? why can't I understand it? why is it, that as much as love is in my heart for you I am caught up in understanding this. what is it that made people squeeze me tightly while my eyes watered and my nose dribbled on that dark sunny day? what was that occasion? what was it for?

unhappy people think life stretches on. happy people say it is the wink of an eye. so I won't struggle to debate whether it was the right time for you or not, I just hope you were happy.

and miracles say you were. like the things you said and did the week before you left that you would never had said or done before; that was God's hand reaching down from heaven to take you Home.

the communion of saints is more than a monumental decree in ink on the pages of a very old Book. you leaving is like a tear in the fabric of us, our comfortable knowledge pulled out from under our feet - but it has led us a little farther, a little deeper into that stark unknown. heaven; a thing, a place, more real than what we consider to be the most permanent, powerful, and relevant things in our lives. the doorway; an unnatural rip that lets the presence of heaven seep out in sharp golden sand. somehow its easier to believe angels surround my bed at night now. and to believe that you never really left, because you are now with Him who is always with me.

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