We who are left.

Five months
from last December's end
I held onto the heavens
our warm and welcomed son
And we prayed and held hard
thinking maybe we had won
I'd like to fast forever
let the dry world peel away
like sunburned skin,
a lifted veil
get through
get through and stay.
But who can hold on to heavens?
And who could restrain Elijah?
Until Jerusalem descends
or I am called to rest
I shall walk as half a man
a  limping cripple left for Christ
There's power shown in weakness,
the unexpected power of God
I pray the power to come and fill
the holes that weakness brought
To hold the place of holy joys
-until those joys returning-
To keep the wounds from scabbing, scarring,
and keep the longing, yearning.
if I had the power to hold you here,
come home to see you kicking
in your little chair
arch your back to be picked up
and tell me all your soul
your small concerns, your deepest care
brightest soul I've ever known
-at work, can't cry, I'm not alone
but I'm a broken man now
because you are so much
for a man who's tasted heaven
how could the prison be enough?
God sees the pleading at the door
when like an insane dog
I scratch and scream at the trim and frame
running circles on the floor.
And He knows, he knows, all that I ask
He knows what dreams shall come
He knows the things that are and will be
He knows and makes a home.

Bonhoeffer and I agree.

Bonhoeffer understands!
“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”
― Dietrich Bonhoeffer