Lighthouse

I have reached out to where you used to be,
and am lost. There is night.
I do not know my way without you.

I am hollowed out. Crippled.
I am not ready for this.
I am not ready to grow up.
I am not ready.

It is a bleak mantra, a terror.

I have grasped at thoughts of you, images and
words that float past my reach and settle
carefully into memory.

I can't find you. Lost.
I can't do this.
I can't figure out what's next.
I rail and stretch and ache.

It is of being cut loose, untethered.
Adrift.

And then all at once I see brightness
where before I had found only shadow.
There is joy here, and surcease from worry,
and peace. I find my bearings.

And I see.
You shine now, you laugh and have
new purpose. You thrive. You watch, and blaze
with love.
And I find my course.

Where you were my guiding hand, you are now
my beacon. I will not falter.
And you will always be there, waiting.
Guiding me to shore.

I will be all right, and you will be watching.
You do not shine the light into the dark for me any longer.
You have become that light.

I will not lose my way again.

                                                      -Your youngest child, Mark