...a time to be born, a time to die...

It's early in the day, yet I've already read about two deaths on my small corner of the blogging world. By coincidence we had two deaths yesterday, well, one died after aggressive care was withdrawn and comfort care maintained, and one patient was transferred to in-patient hospice.

We pass a funeral parlor on the way to HoneyHair's dance lesson, its parking lot filled to the edges and cars overflowing up and down the street from friends and neighbors come to comfort.

Another cold and grey rainy day here, the kind of day that keeps grief hovering close to the earth by sheer weight of the cloud cover.

It's a day when sadness could reign.

But it is a day that I am alive to tell the tale and live out loud, so I offer this poem with many blessings for those who have loss and grief in their lives.




In a beautiful blue lagoon on a clear day, a fine sailing ship spreads its brilliant white canvas in a fresh morning breeze and sails out to the open sea. We watch her glide away magnificently through the deep blue and gradually see her grow smaller and smaller as she nears the horizon. Finally, where the sea and sky meet, she slips silently from sight, and someone near me says, 'There, she is gone!'

Gone where? Gone from sight. That is all. She is still as large in mast and hull and sail, still just as able to bear her load. And we can be sure that, just as we say, 'There, she is gone' another says, 'There, she comes!'
Henry Van Dyke

Peace be with you.



please note: art by John Singer Sargent