My guest today is Diamante Lavendar, who is celebrating the release of her newest poetry collection, Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief. I’ve asked Diamante to share a poem from the collection and its inspiration, and I’m hoping you all find it as moving as I did. Please give her a warm welcome!
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You Shone Like The Sun On Autumn Leaves
You shone like the sun on autumn leaves,
Their remaining life brief before they fell from the trees.
The sun’s light was strong, the warmth intense,
Just as your heart: loving, immense.
But the leaves shriveled up and neared their end,
Just as you when you left, my child, my friend.
Your meaning lives on in every new day;
I begged God for time to extend your stay.
It’s a hard lesson to learn that you have no control
Over life, over love, over a darling child’s soul;
All we can do is sift through the hours
And beg for provision, mercy and power
To experience life’s sentence of lessons and fate
Before we, too, find ourselves in heaven’s estate.
Love us and guide us from your ethereal view,
Until one day we are reunited with you.
I wrote this for my daughters who passed away. One only after ten hours’ time and the other after nearly nineteen years. Both heartbreaking. Devastating. But I know that they are still alive and well beyond heaven’s veil. They visit me and make themselves known not only to help me write so that I can help others but also to let me know they’re okay so that my heart doesn’t break beyond repair. They gift me with a sense of purpose and meaning, with the understanding that heaven is real, it’s not just a wish or a fantasy. Because of them I know that this life is a learning ground that leads to bigger and better things. And I am exceedingly grateful for that knowledge and to be able to pass it along to others who are embattled and mourning. We all need to know why we’re here and what our actions will lead to in the future. And we all need to be comforted and to know that beauty is looming on the horizon no matter how much pain we’ve encountered on planet earth!
Thank you, Diamante, for sharing your poem and story with me and my readers. I hope that it helps others find comfort and healing.
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About Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief
Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief is a winner of a Pinnacle Achievement Award for Spirituality. It is also the recipient of a Silver Medal from Mom’s Choice Awards!
This earthly plane offers much for us to learn: happiness, wisdom, loss, heartbreak, and enlightenment. It is a Pandora’s box of emotions, situations, opportunities, and failures, all wrapped into a package we call life. Nobody is immune, but everyone has the opportunity to grow tall or wither like a flower in harsh light. It’s completely up to us how we choose to respond.
Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief is a gleaning of insights from artist Diamante Lavender. For her, life has been a long, difficult road, but it has taught many poignant lessons. Her poetry collection is an exploration of the human soul, a traversing of situations that life throws at us. Diamante has always been intrigued by the ability to overcome and move on to bigger and better things.
She writes to encourage hope and possibility in those who read her stories. If she can help others heal, as she has, then Diamante’s work as an author and artist will have been well spent. She believes that everyone should try to leave a positive mark on the world, to make it a better place for all. Writing is the way that she is attempting to leave her mark–one story at a time.
Find the book on Goodreads and Amazon
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Click the button below to learn more about Diamante Lavendar and follow the blog tour for Finding Hope in the Darkness of Grief
Thanks for being on the blog tour.
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You’re welcome!
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[…] (Review) Sept. 6: Wall-to-Wall Books (Review) Sept. 11: Ethereal Pages (Guest Post) Sept. 12: Diary of an Eccentric (Poem) Sept. 18: The Book Connection […]
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Wonderful and touching guest post!
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Thanks for checking it out!
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