My body goes numb when all I want is to feel the pain she feels.  Did I get in the way or just not see the way things are? For my selfishness, I’m sorry, for my closed mindedness, I’m ashamed. You know the feeling you get when you watch someone helpless get humiliated, left alone to pick up their tattered clothing and trampled soul? I put my feet in the shoes of another man.  I answered your questions just as you asked but never answered any of my own.  You were wronged and no one you know is to blame.  Reality faced you the second death walked out the door.

Sorrow transcends the gap that bridges me from you from a guy I’ve never even seen.  Community offers this (pathetic) sense of consolation.  I know you don’t want me to ask if you’re all right, I know that only makes this whole thing hurt worse.  But the second you start handicapping us is the moment YOU become an invalid.

I’ll hit a little slower and I’ll speak a little quieter so I can pray a little harder.  It’s our shortcomings that warrant a salvation unattainable on our own. But it’s NOT your shortcomings that sent him home a little early.  It might be that he was saying, “Christ if you want to come back. I think I’m ready for you to come back,” as his heart overflowed through his head.

As I stand above the grave of a stranger I’ll scream aloud the words that locked themselves in your soul. I have not shoulders broad enough, I have not a brain intellectual enough, I have not a heart big enough, but enough is what God promised you and I when He spoke of things like this. This too shall pass.

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2-3

In Loving Memory of: J.D.K.

And beside you I’ll stand, G.E.P.

…the righteous to eternal life.