This poem was written in October 2022 by my friend Hannah after the death of a nine-month-old boy who, with his family attended the congregation Hannah attends. With the permission from Hannah, and Aguin’s family, I’m honoured to share the poem on Riverside Peace.

The Loss of Aguin

Please don’t say, “It can’t hurt that bad,”
When I speak of Joy in pain.

Nor, “She can’t have loved him much,”
When I speak of Peace the same.

No. The grief, it burns like fire:
Searing my heart.
              Numbing my mind.
                        Dulling my senses.

Dead.
My son is dead.
His body in the ground.

And off with him go fifty years
Of watching him grow,
          Making him laugh,
                 Holding his child…

Fifty years I’ll never see,
For nine months in, he went to be
With the One who made him –
Far from me…

Oh, help! The grief! It burns like fire,
 Searing the heart,
              Numbing the mind,
                     Dulling the senses.
                             … Dead…

Peace. Quiet, gentle Peace,
With powerful force I can’t comprehend,
Trickles through the smokey blackness
And holds me.

I hurt.

I’m numb.
I hurt.

By turns –
Around and around, it goes.

But, never shaking,
Never changing,
Always remaining a wall around me,
His Peace never lets me go.

And Joy?
How can I think of joy,
Much less claim it to be mine?

Ach, this Joy – it almost aches;
And I am sure it cries.
It’s as close a cousin to ‘sad’ as ‘happy’,
For it knows depth,
         It knows meaning,
                    It knows hurt…
                                  And it knows hope, of the confident kind.

Ah, the grief… it burns like fire.
Searing my heart.
     Numbing my mind.
            Dulling my senses…

Yes. It burns.
But it won’t consume.
For, wrapped in His Peace
      Touched by His Joy,
          Sustained by His Love,

We know what He has promised…

     “And He who promised is faithful.”
                              Amen

Archived in: 🦋 Christian Reads