Those of you familiar with my story know that today is what our family calls “Hope Day”. It was twelve years ago today that our daughter Hope Marie passed from life support to life eternal. This weekend is always bittersweet for our family, as we celebrate our twin’s birthday on May 2, and then remember Hope’s death just two days later on May 4. I’ve written many entries on this blog telling that story that you can easily look up if you don't know the details. In fact, the blog actually began when the girls were born.
The whole experience this year coincides with the corporate tragedy of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that has had such a devastating impact on our nation and our world. This year, we celebrated Rebecca’s birthday in quarantine on Saturday. We made the most of it, but it certainly wasn’t how any of us expected to celebrate it.
Now, today, we take our yearly solitary pilgrimage to Miranda Cemetery. As Christ followers, we don’t really believe Hope is there, but we embark on this intentional journey each year to visit the stone that marks where her tiny body was buried nearly 12 years ago and honor our daughter’s memory. We remember that Hope’s life—however brief—mattered immensely.
During April, I participated in an online poetry workshop. I do lots of writing, but poetry is certainly a growing edge for me. It’s the language of the heart and I’m not as comfortable speaking it. I’ve spent most of my life learning the language of the head, producing technical writing for NASA and essays on this blog. Most of the time I access my heart indirectly, through my head, but poetry is meant to cut straight to the heart.
We had a prompt every day during April. I didn’t respond to all of them; in fact, I didn’t respond to all that many of them. But I was pleased with the poems I did write. I’d like to share one below. There are two versions posted below. Some of you heard the first version read aloud on as part of Good Shepherd UMC's online worship service on May 3. The second version was a revised version that mixes rhyming couplets with free verse.
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Songs by Broken Heart
By Alan B. Ward
There is a tendency to sing
When we’ve lost everything.
When the whole cosmos seems wrong
Somehow humans continue our Song:
Exiles in Babylon.
Sing of the glory of Zion.
Calls for Hobbit songs as Gondor falls?
Surely Denethor must be enthralled!
Negro slaves back yonder
Lifted their cries to a God of wonders.
When Terrorists toppled the Towers.
Singing “God bless America” empowered.
As COVID-19 put the world on its knees.
Italians sang songs from their balconies.
To each a moment comes
When our world is undone.
To all under the curse
The chance to add our Verse.
To continue the song
When Wrong seems too strong
The lyrics we impart
Must be known by broken heart.
When our darling Hope died.
Without heaving a sigh.
From the depths of our soul
Came songs that consoled.
The NICU staff noted a grace.
That seemed out of place.
As at Golgotha, when Spirit’s breath
Blew through a place of pain and death.
God permeated that space.
Jesus wept with a human face:
And a flicker of Divine joy.
Entered our void.
What matters most.
When all other music is lost.
Is having well-known tunes—non-random
That you simply cannot abandon.
Then, even as tears rain down.
The depth of harmony will astound.
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Songs by Broken Heart
[Version 2.0] By Alan B. Ward
It seems human nature to sing
When we’ve lost everything.
We hear the voice of the exiles in Babylon.
Weeping by the river,
Mourning the life they’ve lost.
They play songs for their captors.
Praising the former glory of Zion.
We hear the voice of the African slave.
Lives uprooted, bought and sold like cattle.
Vital cogs in a racist way of life.
Toiling in Ole Master’s fields.
Singing songs of freedom.
These voices seem out of place,
Like Pippin singing his Hobbit song for Denethor
As Faramir embarks on his hopeless quest,
Ast the White Tree drops its leaves,
And as the gates of Gondor shudder.
In times such as these the only lyrics we can impart.
Are those we know by broken heart.
When Terrorists toppled the Towers.
And our Symbols lay in ruins.
We needed a song to sing together.
“God bless America” became a nation’s healing balm.
As COVID-19 places the world on its knees.
Italians sing songs from their balconies.
Voices on Zoom sing in four-part harmony.
Josh Groben sings from his shower.
Music mitigates misery.
To all under the curse
Will come the chance to add your Verse.
Twelve years ago.
I became the father of twins: Hope and Rebecca.
On the surface both were perfect.
But Hope was merely a shell.
“Twin-to-twin transfusion.”
“Catastrophic injury in utero.”
The autopsy states things so matter-of-factly..
But she was our daughter!
Darling Hope passed.
From life support to life eternal.
Just two days after birth.
No one saw it coming.
I’m a writer.
But all my attempts to say what that moment was for me.
Fall short.
But then: What can anyone say?!
I recall in those days.
From the depths our soul.
We felt melodies rising.
Songs so embedded in us
We could not not sing them.
The NICU staff noted a grace.
That seemed out of place.
We baptized our daughter
As she lay dying.
Spirit’s breath.
Blew through that sterile medical place.
Death seems so final
But faith says we will see Hope again..
Even as our tears rained down.
The Broken-Hearted Song went on.
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