Yesterday afternoon, the big kids were playing together (so nicely!) while Abigail took a nap. I was sitting on the couch, mostly doing okay but welling up with tears every so often. Susannah came over to me and tilted her head in that quizzical way she has. “Oh, Mama, come ‘ere. I will dry those big raindrops offa your eyes.” She grabbed Abigail’s baby blanket. “Take off your glasses.” I took them off, and she wiped my cheeks tenderly with the flannel. That girl… she has more than her share of the WildAndCrazy moments, but she’s got a sweet, softie side too.
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Susannah grabbed the phone last night after dinner. “I’m going to call Grandmama!” I came beside her and took the phone (before she dialed Timbuktu) and said, “Sweetie, we can’t call Grandmama. Remember? She is in heaven now.” Jonas was across the room working at the easel. He tossed over his shoulder, “Yeah, but she gets to hug her Daddy! So that’s a good thing!”
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A few weeks ago, I started recalling snippets of a W.H. Auden poem I first memorized in high school. The middle stanzas had faded from my memory during the intervening years, so I had to go look it up. I can’t reprint the whole poem due to copyright, but you can find it here.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.>The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
But this morning, when I woke up in the still-dark of four o’clock, it was not these words in my head. It was a song, sung by Caedmon’s Call and MercyMe at various times, called “There’s a Stirring.” I sang it with a group for a chapel service in college once.
There’s a stirring deep within me
could it be my time has come?
When i’ll see my gracious savior
face to face when all is done.Is that His voice I am hearing?
Come away my precious one.
Is he calling me?
Is he calling me?I will rise up, rise up
and bow down
and lay my crown
at his wounded feet.
I would like to think that when my mom raised her arms and lifted her palms in her last breath, that she was rising up in the presence of her gracious Savior. I know without a doubt that He welcomed her as His “precious one.”
1 thought on “Loss, and Kids, and Auden”
Oh Michelle…beautiful.