The Tale Of Two Grief’s

The Christmas lights across the street shown with an uncommon brilliance this year.

Stars on naked trees glowed; twinkles of hope; white and blue lights trimmed the deer.

Strange I thought, so strange to see across the street the beauty of the Christmas lights.

He just died one month ago…I thought…I thought the home would be dark as the winter’s night.

Married fifty years were they; fifty years of children, grandchildren and never ending love.

It’s as if when he passed and left her all alone, the Lord God came down from above.

She wept not…at least not openly for the entire world which watched her in a time of need.

Yet I…oh how I, when my wife Leah died felt my very soul escape the man called me.

One month gone is he, yet she still smiles and the lights of home still brightly shine.

What I pray is her secret?

Is her faith; wisdom and knowledge greater than mine?

When this same fate befell me, I shut down, I died inside.

I was alone again and behind shuttered windows I cried.

I let no one in, my home was the darkness within hell’s cave.

No future, no tomorrow in the lonely nights madness I would rave.

I lost my way, I rejected God’s will; I cursed the heavens, but the madness stayed.

I wished to die; specters came and visited me each and every single night.

Their voices called out to me; “Come, oh come for I, my love am here; come,” called the false light.

Yet the old black woman across the street still smiles and blesses those of whom she should meet.

Two worlds it seems thought I…she, even after such a short time walks in the light.

Whereas I, this little man on the other hand, danced cheek to cheek with death each and every night.

I thought of ‘Dickens Tale Of Two Cities’ and concluded that this was a tale not of two cities, but of two grief’s.

One involving her; the other involving me.

It was as different as the night is of the day.

J. Allen Wilson © 12/4/2011