The Prison
All of my loved ones and all that I hold dear
Long ago have left me alone and sitting here.
My prison crumbles around me and yet I cannot leave.
Still, you'll find me waiting, waiting with no reprieve.
Light no longer enters, the windows shuttered years ago.
There's nothing left for me to do and yet I cannot go.
No laughter echos in the corridors, silence fills the soul
And still you find me captive in my dark and empty hole.
Too weak to stand, to sore to sit, in limbo I reside.
No longer independent, even my dignity denied.
How I long to see the sunlight, how I long to hear the breeze,
How I long to do what e'r I want and go just where I please.
I pray each day for freedom and accept whate'r may come.
Until that time I sit here in the prison I've become.
- Tory Norman
March 6, 2014
I wrote this poem after visiting my grandfather who was in his high 90s. So often we cling to this life and death seems so tragic. But as I looked at my grandfather, I saw something so different. His eye sight was failing, he could no longer hear well. His limbs were weak and he no longer had the strength to practice his favorite hobbies or even care for his home. His friends and family his age were all gone and he had few people he could associate with. As I looked at my grandfather, I didn't see the great man that I knew as a child. I instead saw a sad and humbled man trapped inside the prison of his aging earthly frame.
With the knowledge of the eternal gospel and the atonement of Christ comes a different perspective. When death finally touches my grandfather, he will return to the presence of a loving Heavenly Father to be reunited with his dear wife, family and friends. He will become perfected and no longer restricted and imprisoned in his deteriorating earthly body. When death finally touches him, he will be free.
I want to see my grandfather happy again. I want to know him and see him as he really is. And for this reason, I look forward with joy to the day when he becomes free.
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