Wednesday's Woe - Adrift

Adrift...

Yes, I knew you were a part of us...

But when by fate you had to go away,

I did not know you held the heart of us....

I did not know you were our heart’s causeway—

So our hearts went under in death’s floodway,

Leaving muddied our once clear life purpose…

Gulping salty tears, blocking breath’s airway,

We cannot breathe under such grief cumbrous,

Engulfing peace, we’re left adrift... anxious…

Coming unmoored, unsteered,

we’ve lost our way.

I don’t know why you were taken away.

Taking out hearts leaves an empty carcass…

O baby girl, were you our life’s mainstay?

Jesus, take th’ wheel; restore Your life in us!

**********

Written In a letter to his friend (Reverend) Twitchell shortly after his 24-year-old daughter Susy’s death, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) very poignantly said,

You know our life—

the outside of it—as the others do—

and the inside of it—which they do not.

You have seen our whole voyage.

You have seen us go to sea,

a cloud of sail, and the flag at the peak;

and you see us now, chartless, adrift—derelicts;

battered, waterlogged, our sails a ruck of rags,

our pride gone.

For it is gone. And there is nothing in its place.

The vanity of life was all we had,

and there is no more vanity left in us.

We are even ashamed of that we had;

ashamed that we trusted the promises of life….

I did know that Susy was part of us;

I did not know that she could go away,

and take our lives with her,

yet leave our dull bodies behind.

**********

Which makes me wonder,

Just how common are our child-loss agonies of feeling…adrift?

Samuel Clemens about his oldest daughter Susy, quoted in I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb, pp. 450, 454

Photos: http://www.fotosearch.com/photos-images/adrift.html

Poem – Adrift – Angie Bennett Prince – 10/28/09