Life and Loss...

I'm never sure about life. I guess that's a naive statement. It implies I should be, well sometimes I think we feel that curveballs are to be expected but we do assume we'll be prepared enough to have a glove or bat handy. Unfortunately we aren't often even standing at the plate.

My community lost someone yesterday. A tragic loss that leaves another family member in critical condition, fighting for her life. It was an accident, water + tires + 0 traction and life becomes a blur snapped away all too quickly. 

He was a man who played Santa Claus for young children, a man I've known my whole life, whose children are like extended siblings and in the past year a man who's soulmate moved on to streets of gold and heavenly views. I had wondered how long he would be here - their connection so beautiful that for it to be here while another is in heaven seemed destined to be short...however short is a relative term and this small minute in time between losing one an now the other felt cruel when first learning of his passing.

Today with fresh eyes and aching heart, I realize how he must be smiling down with her. Sending his love, his guidance, his wishes for speedy recovery of a daughter in law he loves. I ache for his children, who in recent months had come to see a father coping, smiling again, enjoying grandchildren and activities again. It is a beautiful sentiment that they were able to see him smile again...to see the beauty in life after loss. 

He remains a shining person in my mind. A man of a generation where love is sacred and shown with a careful hand. He made so many people smile, he fathered fabulous children and he loved a woman - one who saw the good in him, saw the power in his presence and loved him until the very end of her life. What a mark to make...

I'm writing today. My characters have sarcasm and wit, they are experiencing confusion, shock and fear...yet in their darkest moments I hope my fingers are able to show their brightest light...their capacity to care, to love. It is what I want in life, a life where death is merely a memory and life is the moment we exist and yet simultaneously cease to exist. It is in that fragment of time that we have left our imprint. we live beyond the physicality if science, existing in memories, photographs, stories, the curve of a nose, the light in the color of someone's hair....Because though we are destined to leave this earth our imprint here remains - make it bright, make someone smile, make every second count, even in death we treasure that it is a beautiful life...