Drop Everything

In loving memory of Teresa Trybalski, brain cancer victim

I can't recall another time
that my eyes so locked with yours,
that every moment in your life was so
wrought with significance,
that so much of who I was
was so owed to who you were.

Perhaps I never would have left
my family's pew,
had you not taught me I could
praise God with my whole
body.

Perhaps I would retain that
superficial view of beauty
had you never made known that a woman's
crowning glory was not her hair, but
the love for her God
and His people.

And as I approached you that
last time,
and I gave you the rose you'd asked for,
and my eyes locked with yours,
and you became so important,
and I saw that I stared at a photograph,
and I realized it wasn't you -- only ashes --
and you weren't there, weren't in that jar,
and I did what you told me to do.

I dropped everything,
right in that moment,
and now struggle to pick up the pieces.