IF I COULD CALL OR TEXT

For you Mom, 20 July 2024, Kit

If I could call or text your beautiful face

I’d feel higher than Everest Mountain

Awash in glacial grace

If I could unveil recent news to you

I’d concentrate on your voice’s timbre instead

to help me even better remember

How lovely your sound and sense

If I could text I’d use two words “Love ya”

Then add a million “forevers” to make it clear

Your love was a constant lift—

heavenly exquisite cheer

In the morning it’s in my ear, your:

“Rise and shine & give God the glory glory”

Or the “Uff Dah” sound 

when putting a heavy thing down

Your belief in me, in Him in me,

was lyrical, gave to me a Song—

a love, in constant crescendo:

“dearest son, you’re mine, you belong”

Your quest to teach & mold me

(pretty tough I know)

to help to build & grow me

into Christ and not the Foe

I thought sometimes you Lofty

your hopes perhaps too high

your esteem not fully grounded 

in the man I really was

But if I could text you now

I’d try to keep it simple

& tell of baseball

or of Isak’s favorite LEGOs

I’d tell of scents like cinnamon

& curly whispy hair

that falls upon a dolly neck 

of your little brown Magdalena

Oh Mom it’s just so heavy

far harder than we’d thought

for Dad and Liz to take a step

and miss you with each breath

I join them listless, braced 

waiting for Life

beyond this bounded space

where my yearning for the feel of you

is a nectar & a blow

For here I cannot hold you

Nor even watch you work

Or ring you on my iPhone 

Just to call & say “Hello”

Kristian Lael Carlson

JUDY RAYE CARLSON

Many more of our families poems written in love & honor of Mom are here: https://kristiancarlson.com/2024/06/18/remembering-judy-raye-a-collection-of-poems-for-a-beloved-wife-and-mother/

About the Author: LCDR Kristian Carlson, US Navy, Chaplain Corps, currently assigned to Navy Medicine units at Fort Sam Houston, TX

Kit Carlson has served alongside Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, & Special Forces, and has completed three deployments. In 2020, the Navy assigned him to Duke University’s Divinity School to earn a specialized Master’s Degree, ThM, in Pastoral Care, where he focused his studies on challenges to Active Duty personnel, Veterans and their families. His specific areas of interest include care for persons with Complex Trauma, strategies for healing from PTSD, Moral Injury, & mild TBI. A key personal mission of his is to leverage the strengths of faith-based Veteran Service Organizations as strategic partners to chaplains, the VA, and the DoD in their ongoing resiliency & suicide prevention initiatives. He is married to his Chilean sweetheart, Damaris. They have two young children, who are the delight of their hearts.