Dear Life

Dear Life, please hold
my hope, hold my
desire to give to life, to
love and serve life.
And please hold my
darkness the tattered
remnants of my grief.
Place a star over my
head to guide me when
I feel lost. Forgive me
my emptiness. Help me
to know how full I am
with the fullness of my
heart and with the
essence that I carry of
all those I have loved
who are gone. Help me
to remember always
the unbreakable circle
of love. And when it is
my turn to die, please
let me be mourned, for
this will mean that I,
too, was loved and that
I lived in some way
that could be missed.

This poem was shared by a young man who brought copies of it to Barbara Ascher's workshop on grief at the Honey in the Rock AIDS conference at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church on March 18, 1995.
Special thanks to Dodie Obryan for contributing this piece.