Paula Wychopen, a seeker of beauty in the everyday, is a writer, mother, widow, and former caregiver for her chronically ill husband, Forrest. The eighteen years she cared for her husband at home were the most difficult and blessed years of her life. Their four children are her most treasured gifts, and she writes to leave a legacy for her children and grandchildren.

Overlooking a mountain vista,
standing along a rocky shore,
strolling down a lonesome
woodland path,

I often think of Earth
as an elaborate shadow
of that promised land
we all long for.

Inherently gorgeous,
but mere reproduction,
of that place our hearts
hope to find in the end.

I wonder at this natural beauty
that captures my
mortal soul,
overwhelms with emotion,
and causes tears to spill
in gratitude of beauty.
Of existence.

And I see you there,
in that promised land,
surrounded by a beauty
which my mind and heart
can never imagine,
can never understand here,
where I dwell in this
dull reproduction.

Two places of beauty separated
by a thin veil, pressed
closely, one against the other,
as two bubbles floating in the air,
drifting through blue sky,
intrinsically coupled.

I imagine me,
bound to this Earth-world,
my soul’s cheek pressed hard
against that iridescence, and you,
in that promised eternity,
your soul’s cheek pressed hard
against your own iridescence.
This shimmering veil
which separates us for now.

I imagine both of us
reaching for the other
through time,
through space,
through that unknown,
longing to be
as we once were.
Yet infinitely closer.

In our own beauty,
created by our love
for one another.
And in that beauty,
finding home,
and peace,
at last.