From Afar

I watched from afar as his mother said goodbye;
The journey ahead was hers, not his.
He would rest in wonder and peace;
While she began her trudging;
Invisible weights chained at her feet.

I watched from afar as his mother withered in pain.
How she longed to hold him;
How she longed to hear his name;
To hear his voice just one more time;
To mess with him, to hug him, to even argue;

I watched from afar as his mother hunched over from the grief, encountered each first and collapsed in tears.
Moments and hours and sometimes days of sobs, and screams, and silent dying;

I watched from afar, longing to get near,
to help, to comfort, to minimize the fear
of what life would be like without her son,
year after year.
Her journey of life had to continue;
Each day like a thousand years;
While he had ascended, sitting at the feet of Jesus,
A thousand years like a single day.

I longed to find a way to take the yoke off her shoulders,
to break the shackles of weight at her ankles,
to relieve a moment of the heartache,
to ease the difficulty of her journey.
But as I watched from afar, longing to get near,
to be able to wipe away her tears,
I learned all too fast, running straight into the isolating glass, that this journey was hers alone.

The burden she must carry was individualized.
It can't be removed; Its her cross to bear.

I got as close as could be, and looked into her eyes as she saw me.
I walked by her side knowing the barrier was there;
I witnessed the fatigue in her eyes,
Heard the tremble in her voice,
and saw through the facade she bravely put on.
I could not pass through,
I could not alleviate a moment of the heaviness.
She must continue to tread through the muck and the mire.

As she journeys one labored step after another,
I declared to this mother,
Though I watch from afar, and I cannot do a thing, to cross this barricade, to alleviate this pain;
I will walk by her side, my hand reaching out,
touching the glass, here till the last.

While I cannot do a single thing and from afar my heart breaks,
I will walk with the mother at her painstaking pace;
Through the mud, up the hills, over the jagged rough ledges, till slowly over time the weights are chipped and the shackles damaged.

Her gait will forever change,
and some weight will always constrain,
but until the journey levels out,
on the other side of the pane, I will remain.