A Sunday Short

what lingers?

Photo by K. Mitch Hodge on Unsplash

i just want to know…. maybe.

the pain that lingers
is from the thing not known.
consider this one, now. 

first, death is eased
in the knowing of the how of the death. 
it is.
in that knowing there is
wholeness. 
(another word for closure)

it’s true, but you don’t know it’s true
until you experience a not knowing.  

pray you never have to find this out. 
simply.    trust.    me. 

being able to say goodbye,
and knowing it for what it is,
brings a quicker softening to that particular grief. 
it does.
(even as we know it might never really end)

a goodbye not given, 
because you didn’t see it for what it was about to be,
lingers. 

“if i had only known, i would have….” 

if i had only known, 
i would have meant a goodbye that lingered. 

(i guess this is just a reminder to never take a loved one’s 
leaving for granted. just love them more,
and tell them. but i’m not even sure that helps.)

one can move on, and along,
with the sadness of a passing. 
yes.
but without the knowing, 
and a goodbye,
there will remain some thing, 
an anguish,  
a thing astonishingly more painful than the death itself.
it will linger, 
it will,
keeping something open we’d just as soon
need closed. 
and no one can know for how long. 

it seems right now not even time
will heal all wounds. 

---

~ k