Death Revisited

It has been 5 years ago today that I got the call that my brother died in a plane crash. It feels like it is yesterday. Conversations, experiences, emotions replay like an old 8 track tape. Raw pain is like an unwanted guest knocking at my door. I expected murmurings of grief, but the rawness renewed caught me unprepared. It feels like a Minnsota winter wind chill without a coat-a chill that goes bone deep with a bite that lingers.
Once again I turn to Psalms of Lament by Ann Weems. She captures the long night I experienced as death revisited the door of my heart.

Lament Psalm Sixteen

O God, will this night never end?
Give me sleep, O God!
Give me rest!
Erase from my memory
the moments of his death.
Blot out the terror
and the ever-present fear
and let me sleep.
I lie upon this bed
tortured by thoughts
that come unbidden.
The night is full of demons.
They stand uon my heart
until I cannot breathe.
There is nothing in my world
this night except his death.
O God, bring the morning light.

Is it not enough
that he is dead?
That there is nothing
I can do
to change what is?
Must I spend each night
revisiting the unlit
corridors of death?

O God, be merciful!
Bring the dawn!
Come into this night
and tear it into day!