Too quick with the wash

You were overlooked

And allowed to soak and spin and drain.

I found your decomposed body

Clinging to my green shirt

Your face still shiny, but now creased-

Your body, a gray mass of pulp.

The pin which held you safely,

Still fast to my collar,

Prevented your timely escape!

My still-popular post “Puzzle Pieces” describes the origin of this jewelry pin and its meaning.

We are all part of the whole, and when one is missing, the picture is incomplete.

But, disasters happen: public or personal; catastrophic or intimate; noticeable or invisible to the casual observer.  Whatever belongs to this world is subject to change, to degradation, to being extinguished.

Paul, in his second letter to the fractious church at Corinth told them this: “The old life is gone; a new life burgeons!”*  We say ‘good-bye’ to the old, often in tears, and look to the ultimate, the lasting, the permanent wholeness that is Love.

There are places and people in our lives which no longer exist, except in our memories.

Whom or what have you mourned?

Wild Plum 3

Photograph copyright by Lynn Bridge

*  This translation and paraphrase of the Bible in contemporary language, The Message, by Eugene H. Peterson, is a favorite of mine.