They are all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here. Henry Vaughan

Death delivers questions like a dump truck unloading dirt:
Why didn’t I do more to stop the cancer?
What made her choose to leave?
How could this have happened to him, to me, to us?

The guilt arrives, demanding an evaluation of every choice.
The soda we allowed, the outing we didn’t prevent.
The questionable quality of the water,
the lack of veggies on the plate.

Like a forensic scientist, leaving no stone unturned,
we re-live our every move.
Parenting becoming perfection over presence.
We give ourselves no quarter, offer ourselves no grace.

We conclude the fact our child no longer lives
means we failed them in some way, but how?
We search for reasons, fault, something or someone to blame.
The doctor, a spouse, the system, ourselves.

But as time marches on, we learn to live alongside the questions,
Accepting there are things we may never know.
Why the illness struck, the pain became too great,
why life is too often unfair.

How do any of us go on
when one of the people who are meant to live on after us
are snatched away too soon?
The losses shape us, inflicting wounds we carry still.

The questions continue, the wondering never ends.
We never let go of our desire to understand.