Another soul was laid to rest today.  I wasn’t there, but as I looked out the window, I thought, “This would be a day to remember.  Negative temperatures, wind that cuts through your skin, and bleak gray skies overhead.  This is just the kind of crappy day where you have to lower your dad six feet down and let the tears form little icicles on your cheeks.”

He wasn’t my dad, but he was the father to a dear friend of mine.  He was young by elderly standards, only mid 80’s, and active.  By all accounts, he shouldn’t have been the one.  And while I imagine the heart break of my friend over losing her dad, I think of my grandma, who is almost 10 years older than he was.  She’s still kicking.  Maybe not with a lot of comprehension, but kick she does.

Then I think morbid thoughts.  Thoughts about death.  Death scares me.  Not because I’m afraid to die. I’m scared because I don’t know how to live if someone I love dies.  How do you say goodbye?  What if you don’t have the chance to say goodbye?

I take for granted that my family is healthy.  My parents, my siblings, my nieces and nephews, my husband…we’re all just fine.   But if one was plucked away from me, I just don’t know how I’d go on.

To my friend who has lost.  May you learn how to live on.