A conversation today with my sister prompted me to post this poem. I haven’t thought about it for a while. I wrote it in 1996, when I sat down with paper and pen and it flowed out almost in its entirety, fully formed. I definitely felt like a vehicle or a channel, because I did not have a hand in creating this–it came straight out in the pen. It was made into a framed print, a photo of which I have included here, and I no longer had it saved as a document anywhere. When I sat down today to “copy” it down, I still knew it by heart. Rachel’s spirit, or the Holy Spirit–but I humbly admit, not my own. I hope it comforts someone else out there.

Rachel S Lemon
Hospital photo,
November 26, 1995

From Rachel, on her first birthday

It is okay

To hurt, this day

For things I’ll never be…

But don’t forget,

Your world holds things

You’d never want for me.

Disappointments I will never have,

Pains I’ll never suffer

I will not fail

I will not fall

And we’ll never hurt each other.

By today, I may have walked

But would I have ever run?

By someday soon, I may have talked…

Would I ask of you, “how come?”

So there are many childish words

You never will hear spoken…

No, my heart was never whole…

But my heart was never broken.

I may not get to be with you

But I’ll never live in fear

You’ll never get to see me smile;

But you never saw my tears.

I lived from warm & loving womb

To a castle in the sky…

And there’s no need to wonder how

There is no reason why.

I paused here, not to hurt you

And not to say goodbye…

But just to put my angel face

Before this family’s eyes…

So now you have an image

Of the girl who would be me

For you are still not ready

To blindly set love free

Until the time when you believe

The things you cannot see.