meanderings

grief is as much a natural element as wind and water and manifests itself in much the same way. at times it blows in like a hurricane crashing through long fortified barricades with its flood of emotions. at times it creeps through our soul like a week long rain, barely touching our dry exterior but slowly seeping through our defenses until we find ourselves drenched with the ache of our loss. however it enters our lives, it is personal... unique to individuals yet following well trod paths.
john lived exuberantly if oft times clumsily. his was not so much a well lived life as a vividly lived life. it didn't happen often for him, but he knew how important it was to get things right. and he was a poster child for the phrase "hope burns eternal." he always expected that this time was going to be better. during his hardest days, he was looking ahead to a brighter future.
and i think that's what drew children to him. john was like a perpetual teenager, not that he was lost in adolescent immaturity, but that he retained that fumbling yet beautiful sense of intensity of living that is youth. no mistake was forever. no adventure too far ahead, he was walking a fierce journey toward life, not without fear and self doubt, but with eyes wide open in anticipation.
his death saddens me in a way i would not have imagined. it caught john, and all of us, by such surprise. i can't help but hope that what comes next will bring that brightness across his face as he adventures on.

... through a glass darkly....

i wish you peace, john, on your journey home

my mother is so naked as this disease eats her brain. i would cover her if i could...

even as i am able to see, as i only glimpsed before, how full of love and fear she has been all her life. i view my mother's physical nudity with no problem. her spiritual nakedness is more of a dilemma. this exposure has led me back to the time when my mother was mommy, and i loved her with all the fierce love of a child for the giver of life, and i still would not see this nakedness. i would not be so naked in front of my own children. what the psychologists forget to tell you is that some of the armor we wear is necessary. we build it to protect ourselves, to survive. the loss of armor precedes the loss of survival, the loss of self. i am watching my mother lose her self. i can only pray that she finds it again on the other side.