This poem remembers the death of my husband, Richard, who died at the age of twenty-nine. I was twenty-five then, left to face the loss with our three-year-old son, Christian. It reflects how that early grief shaped my understanding of love and of death walking beside life.

Reflection #47 — Death and Love

I do not write of death,
not because it is far away,
but because it has never belonged
only to the old.

Death walks beside every age,
sometimes quietly,
sometimes with sudden footsteps
unexpected.

I was too young
when death took a seat beside me
and would not relent
leaving me behind.

My loved one’s leaving
taught me the shape of silence,
the loneliness of an empty bed,
the sad endurance of love.

Even now,
I sit with the dying and listen,
holding hands that loosen their grip
Speaking words over open earth.

Each moment whispers
what’s already known.
One day a breath will come
and not return.

And, in that moment
I hope to meet it gently,
To close my eyes
not in fear

but in gratitude—
for love
outlives every ending.