Ebenezer's Morning

A cloud was hung over my daughters
From before our eyes could meet
Placed by pictures and tests that defied explanation
Called fear of the unknown and grief for what will be

Sometimes receding, sometimes overtaking us
With each failed milestone, foreboding test,
Or shaking head of a medical giant
Biding us brace ourselves against the darkness

When yet again we met in a room
A doctor sighing with sorry eyes
Placing one more crushing boulder
Onto their surreal pile of diagnoses

We felt again that chocking cloud
Overshadow their every smile
Ominous above their achievements
Looming fear of the unknown and grief for what will be

In my grief I let myself be led
To wander down the path of what will be
Along the way I stopped to mourn each fear
The pain they face, the joys they'll miss, rejections they will meet

I mourned the life they would not live
When they lost the sight I could not save
Mourned the magnificent battle ahead
And wept at last over two small graves

And weeping there I realized
I longed above all to see their smiles
To wrap my arms around them safe
And tell them I had cherished the joys
And had not mourned their lives away

Then waking from grief's spell to hear their giggles
I nearly wept for joy, like Ebenezer's morning
There was time yet left for them to live
And time for me to heed the portent's warning

Then ominous grey cloud slunk back to grey horizon
Looming fear of the unknown, aching grief for all that's sad
Now overpowered by a greater fear
The grief of wishing I'd savored the life they had

I lay and smiled in morning's welcome light
And slowly filled my lungs with summer's warming air
And listened to the joy I'd almost missed
The sounds of girls pretending drifting up the stairs

I rose to set aside the endless sandbags
Meant to hold the ocean with my leaking dam
Dusted off our bathing suits, smiled down at them,
Then laughed together, jumped in, and swam