Last Call

The ringing of a phone, you see,
Signals connection about to be;
A conversational launch pad,
With friends or fam, either you're glad.

Get the scoop on a cousin's first kiss,
Reminisce of old when your pants split;
Sit down to plan future events,
Simply listen while the other rants.

Until that call comes in we fear,
The one where someone held so dear,
Has gone on up to Heaven's place,
The world you knew, instantly erased.

This call I've had not once, but twice,
Stole my foothold on a thing called Life;
Connection's not what it did bring,
Instead, an everlasting sting.

The first my dad, unexpectedly,
Brought a thirty year old to her knees;
The next came mom after twenty years,
Sudden disconnect, can't shed a tear.

The world I knew of at each time
Stole of what was my paradigm;
Cause death of someone in your heart,
Tends to shatter a soul clean apart.

Not only through process of grief,
But what feels stolen by a thief;
Words left unsaid, while chairs lay bare,
Void of a loved one's strength and care.

It's a feeling quite hard to describe,
As emptiness flows through your eyes;
A place prayed of no one should be,
Where a phone ring equates misery.

So I keep mine on silent now,
Fear what the next call might allow;
Though even if a third one comes,
I know God's work is far from done.

For it's not of His will to take
Those whom we love to leave us ache;
There is a purpose in the pain,
Sunshine to be felt through the rain.

Cause death holds of no end at all,
Just a pause in between our last calls;
Soon one day we will meet again,
Where life's no longer bathed in sin.

Our hearts freed of each scar and wound,
Forgiveness found, no hurt will loom;
It's then the bond we shared on earth,
Will blossom through our death's rebirth.

This poem was a finalist in the December 2023 poetry contest