August Thirty-First...

Another year passed... another year gone...
another year older- perhaps a bit wiser,
but perhaps not.
And the spectre named Grief lurks in the
shadows, never far from sight or mind.
but on days like today, oozing out into the
open, a slimy ribbon staining the corridors of the hours with an indelible, insoluble mark of pain and loss.

He would have been fifty-two today,
my golden boy, my firstborn child.
Instead, I sit here with a misshapen heart,
a piece eternally missing-
though I have learned a heart can mend,
can still beat on,
sharing love and hope, blessing and peace,
even when a part is gone, forever gone.
For family and friends abound; children
and grandchildren fill my life and so
my heart with joy and love and laughter,
and through it all, through passing years,
a smile persists through veils of tears,
a smile of gratitude and wonder,
of hope and gentle joy,
even as my mother's heart weeps quietly for my precious boy.