I’ve Never Been Good At Healing Prayers

I’ve never been good at healing prayers.
It seems like it shouldn’t be different from others,
I seem to sail through all the others,
Yet I feel I just missed the boat on healing prayers.

And it’s times like this where I miss you.

I always thought you were invincible.
One year on my birthday, you were in the hospital with a collapsed lung.
I kept thinking you’d die any minute,
And I was holding my breath trying to imagine what you felt.

Yet before you know it, they’re taking you back home.
I’m hearing words like diabetes and cholesterol,
Words that don’t affect me, except that now your candy stash
Is filled with sugar free candies that I spit out once I taste them.

Over the years your health was all over the map
So much that it almost became predictable.
“Your Granddad’s not doing well, Lacey.”
“He’s going to be okay. He always is.”

I remember doctor’s visits and updates,
But you smiled every time I saw you.
To be fair I didn’t see you nearly enough.
I probably missed a lot of days that you didn’t smile.

When they said it was cancer,
It should have been terrifying.
Yet this was you.
Cancer wouldn’t beat you.

Until it was.
And the sparks in your eyes were still there,
But your body was withering away.
You told us to stop praying, you wanted to go.

I just wanted you to be able to pick up a guitar
And sing some hymn telling me it’s all going to be fine,
“Please just be okay, come back.
I’ll visit more if you do.”

The day before the funeral,
I wondered if He didn’t hear me right,
Since instead of more visits,
We had to have a visitation.

I do know you knew I loved you,
You told me so yourself.
But since I didn’t come around
I keep feeling like I can’t be sad that you’re gone.

I had so many chances to spend more time with you.
I keep thinking if I say the words out loud
“I miss you. I want you back.”
That everyone will silently pray that I just shut my mouth.

Or perhaps not so silently,
Because our family has never known subtlety,
Especially in moments of stress and grief,
So I keep my mouth closed and tears inside.

I’ve never been good at healing prayers,
And now that you’re gone, I wonder if I’ll ever learn,
Because you’re not around to sing about God’s healing grace,
And I don’t know how to sing anymore.