Bittersweet

My best friend's mom has passed away. I'm usually pretty good with words, but sometimes the clouds in a stormy moment get in my way. This is just such a time. I'm grateful to have been loved. I'm glad to have loved. I'm sorry to have lost but relieved to have had so precious a time. I am renewed in faith and rejoice in its comfort. I am strong because I am needed and I am brought to peace by those who seek to bring me there. I don't want to be alone, nor do I want to leave others alone, and so I link my arms generously with those who open their arms to me - - something I learned most pointedly from this gracious and loving woman. I learn and move in her example and so I don't say good-bye. She glides away into another place just outside my reach, so that when I arrive there is a smile to greet me and a warm embrace to bring me in. She rejoins those who have gone before her and now in that moment they are, indeed, joyful.

With all that, it's not easy not to feel like there ought to be a pause in the day that recognizes the sadness at having lost this magnificent person. Why are the buses still running? Why is everyone just going about their business? Why is it snowing instead of still? I don't have the words to express this any better than W.H. Auden did... look up the Funeral Blues if you get a sec. All I can say is that as the natural progression moves me forward in waves away from my childish self to a time when I am the mature adult in the room (yes, it's happening) I can't help but wish I could cling again to the legs of my best friend's mom and beg her for a few more minutes of play before she goes. Now, instead, it is her grandchild, who clings to me with his melting eyes and asks to stay just a few moments longer so he can play with my own children. I acquiesce, as she always did, and smile. It is indeed, so bittersweet.