Echo

My mum died when I was nineteen but that wasn’t what did it.

My childless great-aunt who adored me and had wanted to adopt me (as my mum wasn’t married) was killed in the car crash we had on the way back from visiting my mum in hospital just before she died, but that wasn’t what did it.

My friend, the mother of four young children and aged just 39, died one Christmas Eve, but that wasn’t what did it either.

My closest cousin, in her forties, died believing God was going to heal her; I don’t know if that did it.

Echo
The resonance of sound, reverberating as it rebounds,
to return again again again.
Each word reflected, mirrored, echoing, echoing, echo.

Calling out to the heights,
your cry thrown back at you,
a hollow shadow, bereft of life.

And when your ears are ringing and
the mimicry becomes too much to bear,
what do you do?

When your questions meet a resounding wall of silence
and a jagged peace tears at your soul,
what do you do?

Turn off the tears, shut down the heart,
build a wall to keep out pain
that buffets and shakes and threatens to undermine.

Let your heartstrings be pulled by sentimental songs,
reminding you of who you once were
and how you used to feel
before.
Before you became an empty echo of yourself.