The Missing Pieces

Every night she flipped through photos
Of smiling faces and joyous laughter
She looked at them with a smile on her face
With wrinkles growing on her forehead
And a tear falling down her cheek.

Her hands have grown creased
Through years of rummaging in every nook and cranny,
Her eyes blurred, tired of seeing strange faces
But her spirit still confident in the vague chance
That she might find what she was looking for.

Every night she would put down the album
Lie down on her bed and start to sob
Unable to bring herself to sleep
She would get out of bed and prostrate herself
Before God to plead her case before Him.

"Why must I suffer the torment of not knowing
Of not being near the one I love?
Why must I be distant from them and
Why must they be stripped from me?"
She has asked the same question
Every night for twenty agonizing years.

She would rather see a body or a hand
Or even just a semblance of what she had lost
Just so she can receive an absolution
For something she deems herself culpable
And for which she does not have control over.

This is the suffering of those whose hopes are elusive
The answers to whose questions may remain unknown forever
Only until their final day, when their tears have been spent
And their strength has withered, only then will they know
The truth which has escaped them far too long
A truth that would already be useless to them.