How Can I Say Goodbye

How can I say goodbye to you
When it was just yesterday I said hello
A tiny beauty placed in my arms

With joy I looked on your cherub face
Seeing the promise of your tomorrows
In the rose blush on your cheeks

I watched you grow in tiny steps
First across the living room
Then out in a world so large

How did it happen that a young girl
All smiles and giggles left through the front door
To return a gorgeous young woman

In your gown of white I watched you
Bond your heart to your husband’s
No longer just my daughter but now a wife

Your union giving me beautiful grandchildren
Their animation lighting my days with happiness
Carbon copies of the little girl I once held

Now grief squeezes my heart with icy fingers
Each breath painful in my sorrow
Death came and took you from me

Awake I stare into the night not wanting to close my eyes
Holding on to an impossible hope that if I don’t sleep
I won’t have to rise tomorrow to say a final goodbye

Within my soul I know this is not what you would want
To have me trapped in such bleakness
You would say Daddy I am alright

I don’t know how I will make it through the next moments
Let alone the days ahead without you
But I know you will be watching and that will help me go on