Summary: a poem about Ben’s life from Boston to the Ponderosa and his family there.
Rating: PG  Word Count: 540

My Angel Went to Heaven Today

How many have made this lament? My angel went to heaven today,

We so wanted this baby with us as three but God saw another way,

Leaving silence and emptiness then

Where a baby’s cooing in his mother’s warm comfort could have been.

She saw our boy and smiled at him with eyes so bright and full of love,

But she knew her time with us would be looking down from above.

She had told me to take our son to go chase our dream

To follow the stars and cross every stream

To get where the skies above the mountains are clear

Where the grass and the meadows are precious and dear

And the tall trees reach up to touch those bright blue skies

And I can hope the tears there may no longer cloud my eyes.

Some wonder why I complain? Two angels loved me but both went away,

In only six years, once more I have to say, my angel went to heaven today,

This time she left a son in the arms of his brother

What comfort is there to a babe with blue eyes to be held by a child not a mother,

What comfort is there for a father to see two boys who need love and have only me,

Somehow, she knew in the west our future would be

To build it, she adopted mine as ours

Though it would take many hours

I’m starting to know that the tall trees of my first angel’s dream to touch blue skies

Are the two strong sons that my angels gifted me and I see the love in their eyes

Blessed with my third angel and a few years with her love, the curse came across

All too soon, I had to say once more, my angel went to heaven today, and suffer that loss.

These angels had delivered to me sons three

There is no limit to my love for them and their love for me

Nothing we can’t do together, us four

Some find that out the hard way and we show them the door

I never knew that strength and love could come from what I lost

But my heart still grieves at the ache of the cost

The portraits are framed on my desk all in gold

But to touch them is to feel only cold

No matter the joy and pride our sons bring to me

I’ll always wish one of my angels here could be.

“That woman makes my heart sing and makes me feel young again,

but I worry about bringing another woman into this family.

Three times and three heartaches.

Adam lost three mothers, Hoss two, and Joe one.

Dare I risk that again? Is it right to think of myself before my sons? Is it selfish?”

“Pa, we picked a bunch of flowers.

I picked the lobelia, the sunflowers are from Hoss, and Joe picked daisies.

We thought you should go say hello to the newest citizen of Virginia City.

We wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more of her at the house.”

I daresay the angels in heaven must be smiling today.

Once more my heart goes into the fray.