Longing

Longing for home.  For parents and sisters and all things warm and familiar but long missed and much changed, and yet the same.

Longing for friends still loved but long separated not by distance, but by time and sickness and the complications of life.

Longing for places beautiful and full of meaning that I may never see again.

Longing for the love of people dead and lost to me.

Longing for the love of people that should be walking through life with me, but are not any longer.

Sometimes all my hopes for heaven are simply for a place where longing is answered. For this burning in my throat to go away.