A few days ago we celebrated my wife's 80th birthday. We had talked frequently about the difference that medical people make when talking about someone "in their seventies" versus someone who is considered "old, becasue they are in their eighties. I wrote this on her birthday and we thought it would be worth sharing with a larger readership.

REMEMBERING YOUR 80TH

Mary,

Yesterday you were young,

Just in your 70s!

Today, you are old—

You have reached that

Definitive age when you’re bodily functions

No longer work as well as the day before.

 Mary,

That age is 80

At least so we are told

By the medical experts around the globe.

As you contemplate this new age

Of being an octogenarian,

And still as energetic as the day before

Mary,

I am so glad that several years ago,

When you were still so young

You said yes to a man’s request

So much older than you were at the time.

Mary,

Now you are also an octogenarian

You have managed to live so joyously

Your spirit is so much younger and more energetic

Than your 80 years that show on the calendar.

 Mary,

Enjoy each day of this new decade

Make each day one of remembrance

Forget those doctors who claim that

Now you are old—this does not show in you

 

DARK--Where is the Light?

Dark

Where is the Light?

What happens when the brightness

Is shattered by darkness and death?

How do we ever find the light;

Where is the light when all seems black?

Dark

Grief is like a wall of fog

Sometimes paper thin;

Sometimes thick as concrete.

But always surrounding us

Until only fog is seen.

Dark

The grief of darkness

Comes over us like a shroud.

It wraps itself around us,

And fills in all the holes

Until we cannot see beyond the dark

Dark

Why so many deaths?

One by one my siblings die.

It does not seem to matter

At what age death takes a life

Nor what the circumstances.

Dark

A brother taken far too young.

 Another sister gone;

A favoured brother made the 100 mark.

But now the twelve are down to two;

How can I face these many deaths?

Dark

All around the kiss of death,

A family member’s niece at only thirty-one

But now a four-year old?

No words express the foggy grief;

A crying hug is all that we can feel.

Dark

The clouds keep rolling,

Dark and ominous.

Until we are at a loss—

But suddenly a crack appears

The clouds let in some light.

Hope

Hope, then despair, as the crack disappears.

Will it ever return with light?

Grief and joy entwined this day.

Death and life fill each moment.

And still the crack keeps out the light.

Hope

Confused yet enlightened.

Surely the light must come—

Another crack that broadens

As the separating clouds slowly

Give way to brilliant sun.

Light

Praise God, the crack has opened up,

Will the dark finally disappear?

And will the sunlight come streaming in?

 We have waited so very long,

But finally there is light within our souls.

Light

We finally see light and hope,

We dare to think the clouds of gloom are gone;

As we have suffered in darkness and grief,

So we will find that joy comes in the morning.

And with the light comes joy and peace.