because he lives: in memoriam

I cannot bear her honesty,
she is too much;
too much and not enough.
I hate her.
There are many words I hear and read,
but it is these I remember.
Am I just noise, lost in the wailing of the sea?
Am I just empty words, fluttering in the void?
Is it true,
can it be,
that there are other words, defining me?
Is it true that some roots go deeper than my grief,
my doubt,
my rage?
Is there something more than my pain?
I can not tell
But I remember a few words, now,
slipping under my shroud and gently touching my heart,
because this is how you rekindle a flame,
this is how a dead heart starts beating:
Love, and nothing else.
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Grandma Struck told me those words,
accompanied by yellow peeps
and fierce hugs.
And the Toays,
with kindness
and eyes that made a shy child feel safe.
So safe, that when I left a church
that had wrung my spirit dry,
When I fell
and fell
and fell
I never forgot those words.
And tonight, right now, I know this:
Because He lives,
I can face tomorrow.
And when I doubt it,
I see the words, written in love across the sky,
across the face of the world,
across my own fragile, beating heart.