"Yesterday, a dear Facebook contact messaged me about the death of her great granddaughter by foul means. This was the second such heartache the poor woman has experienced, having had her son murdered a number of years ago. She is naturally heartbroken and all I felt able to do was to pray and cry for her.
The same day, I was reminded by Facebook of a poem I did two years ago entitled 'Come home Daddy, please come home'. The poem got me thinking about the many different wars we each fight in our daily lives, Although the poem is about a young boy missing his father who is fighting a war in a foreign land, it also brought back memories of my own mother who fought a war on want for the majority of her life; along with all those others who are fighting their own personal war today and are engaged in their own struggle against, bereavement, poverty, ignorance, depression, mounting debt, discrimination, physical-mental-pschological-abuse, illness, starvation, homelessness and civil strife.
In particular, the words of my poem seemed to resonate with the heartbreak and war of despair my dear Facebook friend must be going through at this time in her life. May all of you with great losses to bear find the strength to one day 'come home again' to the person you want to be and used to be, to a place where you are wrapped in a blanket of love and security.
'Come home Daddy, please come home' by William Forde: Copyright: January 2016.
'How much hurt can a torn tear hold?
How much love can a heart unfold?
How much blood can a war contain?
How many letters 'til you're home again?
How long must I wait 'til you return?
How much longer must I yearn
for you back home again, Daddy?'
William Forde: January 25th, 2018.