(You can follow Aimee Benefield here.)
A Note from Aimee Benefield
This is a poem to express my grief over my precious children who’ve let our relationship die and possibly help other parents have words for their own grief.
I’d love to put this into a song someday. Because I looked for music to speak to my heart on this topic and couldn’t find it.
A Different Kind of Death
I’ve lost loved ones to Death’s unwelcomed grasp.
It has left an ache in my heart and many days and nights I’ve wept, longing for one more hug, one more conversation, one more “I love you.”
But even though that sorrow is something quite severe, it pails in comparison to a different kind of death that I have come to know.
The choice of my precious child to walk away and let our relationship die.
This too was unwelcomed and has left an ache in my heart and many days and nights I’ve wept longing for one more hug, one more conversation, one more “I love you.”
When a loved one is taken from you by death, you still have hope for a happy reunion. A day ahead when the doors of death are burst wide open. And tears of sorrow turn into tears of joy.
When you finally are together forever never left again to long for one more hug, one more conversation or one more, “I love you.”
But when your precious child chooses to let their relationship with you die, it’s a different kind of death. They leave your shattered, aching heart by choice with no promise of a future, happy reunion.
No hope that tears of sorrow will be turned to tears of joy. That your separation will have a final end. That you’ll ever get that one more hug, one more conversation, or one more “I love you.”
This kind of ache in my heart is more than I can bear. So, my precious child, I trust your loving Heavenly Father to watch over you wherever you go.
And I give Him my broken aching heart, and allow him to carry me in His arms until you are in mine once again. And if that longed for day of reconciliation comes, you will see I have loved you all along.
And if you never return, to this loving, though flawed parents embrace, I know that I will be OK through God healing grace.
But please know this, there will never be another YOU— to fill your special place in my heart. So come home my precious child, come home to my loving embrace. For, I have loved you always, forever—no matter what!
You can follow Aimee Benefield here.