A Continual Goodbye [POETRY]

​My grandmother who lived the longest
I knew for the shortest span of time.
Ninety-six when you left this life,
Only thirty or so of your latter years
Did we have to spend together
After you appeared suddenly
In my family’s life, like a flash in the sky,
As the mysteries of Momma’s birth
And adoption were resolved,
And we met you at the Davis Brothers roadside
Restaurant there in Georgia’s Appalachian foothills
On a late spring Southern evening.
Overflowing with kindness and encouragement
In this life, patiently bearing your final trials,
Now you are receiving the rewards
Of your faith in Christ in Paradise,
Where saints and angels and all Christian folk
Rejoice in the Presence of the Trinity
And enjoy the foretaste of blessings to come
After the Lord’s return and the renewal of all things.
Here in your absence, life goes on,
A continual Goodbye to everyone we know,
Memory mingled with pain
For our inability to keep them close by:
Photographs, videos, voices, each a stab
Of nostalgia as they glide before eyes and ears
Or arise in the eyes of the mind.
‘Wish I could see you’ –
Some of your last words spoken to me,
Traversing the many miles between us
Over the telephone line.
Now, your soul separated
From your body for a time,
I believe you can, should the Lord allow it.
And through prayers to God for you,
A small reunion takes place here today
In anticipation of the greater one
After death and time are abolished
And the mystical Kingdom of God
Fills the cosmos to the uttermost.