Sunny Days in Heaven
Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven


Monday, January 03, 2005  

A Personal Moment of Terror

I put my wife and daughter (19) on a plane to England last Saturday. They'll be in Great Britain for two weeks to sightsee. My daughter had been out the night before (New Year's Eve) with friends, and before she left I warned her to be careful on the road coming home since there will be people who have been drinking at the wheel.

After she left I had a moment of terror and panic when I considered her sudden death. I saw a man unconsolable in grief for the loss of this beautiful and darling child should something terrible happen. The loss of a future so bright and joyful, accomplished and wonderful. I knew I would endure and even smile again someday, but the terror of the immediate loss gripped my stomach like a vise.

Each death in Iraq of one of our soldiers is like that for someone. Each death in South Asia is like that or perhaps, often for no one because all are dead.

I had forgotten how dearly I love my child. We are such a tender hearted and supportive family that our love for each other has become a kind of ordinary air we breathe, but this Christmas my daughter took her own money and bought us gifts that showed much forethought and care (and not extravagance), and it made Christmas a whole new experience and special again.

She is my pride and joy, and the fact that she has come to appreciate her parents is just that much more gratifying.

William Wordsworth

Strange fits of passion have I known:
And I will dare to tell,
But in the Lover's ear alone,
What once to me befell.

When she I loved looked every day
Fresh as a rose in June,
I to her cottage bent my way,
Beneath an evening moon.

Upon the moon I fixed my eye,
All over the wide lea;
With quickening pace my horse drew nigh
Those paths so dear to me.

And now we reached the orchard-plot;
And, as we climbed the hill,
The sinking moon to Lucy's cot
Came near, and nearer still.

In one of those sweet dreams I slept,
Kind Nature's gentlest boon!
And all the while my eyes I kept
On the descending moon.

My horse moved on; hoof after hoof
He raised, and never stopped:
When down behind the cottage roof,
At once, the bright moon dropped.

What fond and wayward thoughts will slide
Into a Lover's head!
"O mercy!" to myself I cried,
"If Lucy should be dead!"

posted by Mark Butterworth | 7:21 PM |

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