POEM: The Welcoming Committee

THE WELCOMING COMMITTEE

How do they know
in heaven
to gather at the gate?
How does the word
get spread:
“Prepare yourself! She’s coming!”


Watchers on this side wonder,
“Why is she waiting?
What else needs to happen?
Is there a face she longs to see –
a voice once more to hear?”


Maybe the delay is on that other side.
The word has gone out.
The committee gathers.
“Look! She’s reaching for us!
We are almost in her sight!
Is everybody here?
Yes!”


“Welcome!”

By Cherry Winkle Moore
Jan. 1, 2009

I woke up in the new year of 2009 with this poem in my head.

When a hospice patient seems close to dying but doesn’t seem able to let go, it is not unusual for hospice staff to talk with families about what might be causing the patient to linger. Sometimes it seems that there is one last piece of business waiting to be done: a grandson to arrive home from Iraq or for someone to phone. Sometimes they seem to be waiting for an anniversary or other significant date.

There were times when the family could think of nothing or no one for whom the patient might be waiting. That’s when I had the thought expressed in this poem. Maybe the people who need to be at the gate aren’t there yet. They are busy doing whatever work they do in heaven. They haven’t gotten the message yet. They haven’t gathered.

I expressed this idea to a nurse at Hospice Brazos Valley and said, “I wonder what kind of communication device we’ll have in heaven? Beepers, maybe?”

She looked shocked, “Oh, no! Not beepers! Surely they will all be in the other place!”

There must be some other celestial device summoning our loved ones to gather when we come near. I wonder how it works.