When the phone rings and you hear a familiar voice, the voice of someone you love, but not the one you usually speak with, you know…
You know that voice has something serious to say that you don’t want to hear, but he has to say it, and you have to hear it. You know. You don’t know what to say, and you don’t know what to do, so you say I love you and you say goodbye. And your heart feels a particular anguish for him, because you know he has more calls to make, and you know what that’s like. You’ve been in those shoes before.
And you wonder how it could possibly be, as you go about doing the things that you must do this day, as you do every other day; feeding the family, doing the dishes, washing the bedding for the fifth time this week, soothing the crying baby, expressing the milk.
And you cry a little, and try to explain to an almost four year old the concept of loss, when he’s seen far too much movie violence to understand what’s final and what is not.
And you wonder again how it could possibly be, when you’ve just seen her, and she was as she always is, smiling, gentle, kind, warm, and full of love. How could it possibly be? She was the first visitor when the baby was born. She held him in her arms. We hugged, we looked deeply into each others’ eyes and hearts, we said I love you.
And days later, only days, she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and not two months later, she is gone. How can it possibly be?
Rest in peace, Sweet One, dear Humble Seeker. Rest in Peace.
