Thing is ...

Thinking about losing my dad, losing my mom, odd word loss, strange verb to lose, strange phrase, losing people. Thing is ... they hardly seem lost. If anyone is lost, it is us, trying to understand their passing. But I do not find them gone. They are here and don't call me crazy to say so. Maybe they are made into lovely silk ribbons, long rolls of gossamer, slightly champagne color, wavering like smoke, shimmering like candlelight through your lively life and you find they weave themselves in and out of your mornings, your noons, your nights. How tricky they are to find their way into your daily day, glowing slightly, not ghostly, but they smile back in funny ways, they drop a tear here and there throughout the house, and beg one of you at unlikely times.

And as we go forward, we pray to have new friends acknowledge them very delicately, simply know that they were here and now gone, that they are embedded in our lives, these not-at-all-lost lovely people we just can't call on our cell phones anymore. Never lost, perhaps better found. And we need others to know they are present, and that we -- the schoolyard bullies of aliveness, living loudly in this noisy world -- need to shove over and make room for them, let them live in picture frames and out, let them breathe new life into all our new ventures, new babies, new houses, new loves, new days, tenderly whispering their blessings to us to just go on.