Given the nature of my job, I have hours to think. An endless parade of point, counter-point. A focus for the echoes, the could haves, the should haves, and the wills yet to see fruition.
Everyone has benchmarks in their calendar which bring about celebration or remembrance. For me January brings about a period of remembrance.
The end of January is a hard time for me. The weather usually matches my mood, though today, as I write, it's in the 70's, sunny and a lite breeze. What might be deemed the perfect weather seems oddly appropriate for the "Thesis Du Jour".
My Grandfather (above), teacher, life coach, confidant, and friend died this day in 1994. He left this world in a very short time and left a void in my life which I never expect to fill. My Daughter (Right), teacher, life coach, confidant and friend died this day in 2005. Today marks the tenth anniversary of her passing.Few helped shape me as these two have. Funny and all weathered. Each possessing a zest for life and a boundless curiosity of all things. Music lovers and rascals each, they left this world a smaller place, but the memories and stories we tell brighten my cave.
A friend from my youth lost her husband a year or so back and the only thing I could think of was what not to say. That thing being, "I'm sorry". Another friend from my youth lost her son recently and i've struggled at something of value to say to her and again, my words fail me.
I've been to far too many funerals and the words, "I'm sorry" just don't assuage anything. The intent may be present, but the substance is gone. It's all used up. Condolences should never produce numbness and ire. Yet the desire to say something generally overrides sensibility and we are left with "I'm sorry". I could postulate a thousand theories as to why we use sorry in that venue, but I believe most of us could. "My thoughts and prayers are with you", grows more stale by the day, but it really is the thought that counts at times like these. Though it doesn't have to be. With a little effort we can bridge a span of that gulf which lies between the living and those surviving, but it takes initiative on your part. In the absence of that initiative, we default to what's handy.
So we march on. We remember those gone on and await our own mystery to unfold. Every day an unknown. Don't waste it on the petty. Instead, visit your Grandmother and show your children where you come from, go call a friend just to let them know you are thinking of them, hold your child even if they are grown. Today is the day to tell them who they are to you.
Until I write again, Peace be with you,
Dave
