just time and silence

I wrote this after reflecting about my Dad’s death.
In the darkest of the day my memories flow like a river over the stones of time. And now all of the words have been said and there are no fences to be mended. Soon it will be fall and the colors of a flame will be ever present on the maples. There are no answers and there are not even questions, just time and silence. The quiet is that of a late summer morning before the sun has started to turn the sky pink. There is just the faint hum of an occasional insect in the distance mourning the end of the night. It is as if you are in a skiff that is slipping over the horizon. I could see you smile and wave as you do so. When I see you again I will be smiling and waving at my family as I slip over the horizon and there you will be with the One, the One that I long to see. And so life moves forward. Did life change? No. Did our lives change? Yes, but not of sadness or a sense of loss but a sense of hope that at some time in the future we will meet again at the gate and we will be joined together because of sacrifice. Not your sacrifice or mine, not the hardships we endured but the sacrifice of the One who looked like all the others and walked the dirt roads of a far away land. He suffered for each of us that in the end we would be reunited at a gate like no other, we will not only be with one another but with Him the ONE that sacrificed all for each of us.