A Prayer for the Death of a Parent

Father, my parent is gone, and I feel strangely unmoored, as though the ground that held me steady my whole life has shifted beneath my feet. I am someone's child still, but the one who called me that is no longer here.

There is so much I wanted to say, so much I assumed there would be time for. Now the phone will not ring with their voice, and the holidays will hold an empty chair, and I do not know how to be in a world without them.

I bring this orphaned feeling to You, the only Father who never leaves. You knew them before I did. You held them at the start, and You held them at the end.

Steady me now. Let the love they gave me keep growing in me even though they are gone. Where there were words unsaid, let there be peace. Where there was old hurt, let there be healing.

You promised to be a father to the fatherless, a steady presence to those who feel suddenly alone. Be that to me now, and parent the grieving child still living inside me.

I place my mother, my father, and my own unsteady heart into Your unfailing hands. Hold the family they left behind. Amen.