How Strange

How strange it is
To find oneself
In a world
To which you
No longer belong.

My husband
And my
remaining children
Are here
With me,

Yet, we are alone.

We have been forced
Across a chasm
That isolates us.

There are those
Whose families are intact.
And we,
With a child
Who is dead.

The others are
not without compassion
But the chasm is vast
They do not understand us.

We frighten them.
We have become
The reality
They abhor,
The possibility
They deny.

Better to maintain
A safe distance
Than to acknowledge
The vulnerability
We represent.