My year ended with a memorial service for a couple who died from Covid two weeks apart. It seemed befitting in some ways that they died so close together. You couldn’t say one of their names without saying the other in the same sentence. I’m sad to say that the new year has started off the same way with the loss of two special people who share their own space in my heart. I feel richer for knowing them even if for the moment I must grieve their loss.
There is a strange tension that pervades human life. On the one hand, we are encouraged to open our lives to people and to love and be loved but on the other hand with that openness comes great loss and a deep void when they are gone. It makes for some happy and sad times in life. Times when we must ask questions and be reminded again of what is important and what’s not.
The older I get the more I understand how fragile life is. Every day is a gift to be lived with all the gratefulness we have. Some days are harder than others, but it’s nice to know that love is always present and to be loved is one of the greatest gifts. Love brings hope with it; hope that though weeping may endure for a season that joy will come again.
From the beginning of our life to the end so many people, moments, and circumstances come together to help make us who we are. All the things we have experienced are woven into who we are and are becoming. We can’t go back, we can only move forward one day at a time, one step at a time. Hope is what propels us forward and keeps us from giving up.
In the end, hope has helped me to see that though my heart is broken at the moment I will continue to dance even if it’s with a limp in honor of their lives.
