One year ago today John Fox Peterson (better know to me as Grandpa) breathed his last just before the stars of the night faded into the reality and radiance of the dawn. He ran into the arms of his beloved Savior to the broken sounds of his family singing praises as their last goodbye. They praised and thanked God for the lives Grandpa had touched, the lives he had changed through the ministries he had been involved in, and through the very person that he was. I can almost hear the echoes of our God saying to him as he kneels before the throne, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

In that darkness before the dawn, silence and hoarse whispers were all that could be heard.  Until my soul found expression on the strings of my harp.  Sometimes language fails us.  Sometimes it is simply insufficient.  Sometimes a poem doesn’t need words.  Sometimes depth of expression isn’t profound or beautiful, I wouldn’t even call this music.  It’s just that: and expression.  It’s grief and loss, and pain.  Its that viscerally hollow, sick feeling in pit of your stomach. Yet in the bitterness of the moment and the years to come, there also hope that doesn’t disappoint.

There is comfort  in the dawn,
In the certainty of its coming
in the confidence that the sun
will burst forth
even after the darkest night,
in the hope that this is not
the end of the story,
that we will see each other again
one day in another,
more glorious sunrise.

el·e·gy
noun
1. a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.
synonyms: lament, requiem, dirge