How do we measure this time we've spent?

Calendars ticking off days and weeks

Moments frozen in time

Photographs of pieces of ourselves

Greeting card memories

Souvenir secrets of the past.

How do we recognize these feelings?

Good times we've enjoyed

Bad times we've endured

Joy and Love; anger and despair

Caresses of Love, lashes of hate

Touches of comfort, strokes of pain

Smiles lost in misery.

How do we, the ones left behind, travel on

with great chunks of life's path

dropping from under our feet?

Bits of ourselves falling aside

detour signs and burning bridge warnings.

Each hears the answer

Press on

Walk on

Roll on

Rebuild

With the bricks of strength

formed in us and for us

by those who

have gone before us,

Passed through our spaces

Lightened the way.