A Tricky Subject

A sad thing happened yesterday (when I'm writing this.) Justin came to pick up Josie and said there would be no school Thursday because of a death. The school's beloved librarian died Wednesday after a cardiac event a few days earlier. School is closed so that counselors can meet with the faculty to help them with their own grief and to suggest ways of talking to the students about this loss.

Josie will be with me tomorrow and I will certainly follow Justin and Claui's lead in talking with her--if that seems to be something she wants to do.

She hasn't experienced this sort of loss yet. Pets and farm animals have died, and she has accepted this, as far as I can tell, philosophically.

I have no doubt that many parents will be assuring their children that the librarian has gone to be with Jesus. This isn't an option for me--the best I can do about death is to say no one knows for sure what happens but that our memories of the person keep them alive in our hearts.

The gone to Heaven/a better place/be with Jesus is no doubt comforting--maybe telling a child this when one doesn't believe is no more harmful than encouraging a belief in Santa Claus. I don't know. As I said, I'll follow Justin and Claui's lead.

But, please, none of the 'God needed her' stuff. She had a child in fourth grade. Whose need was greater?

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Two Sides of the Coin

Yesterday afternoon I attended a memorial service for my friend Eileen. As I drove home, I thought about the curious balance of life and death.

I had just said goodbye to an old friend, departed after a long and well-lived life; I'd just received pictures of my new nephew -Asher Andrew Walton, new born Friday, with all of life awaiting him.

Sunrise . . . sunset -- they follow one another in a never-ending round.

And how perfect that the Great Blue Heron -- my personal symbol of eternity (he lurks in the river of Elizabeth's world in the present and the past) -- should be waiting for me when I crossed the river on my way back home. . .

Hello and Goodbye.
Go in peace; Arrive in joy.

Thoughts at year's end

The word pansy comes from the French pensee, meaning thought, and on this overcast, slightly melancholy day, my thoughts are turning to losses of the past year. My neighbor Mearl, a strong mountain woman who was the inspiration for many of my characters, left us in April. Her house is empty and lonely-looking, though her children keep the yard and pastures as tidy as if Mearl were looking over their shoulders -- as she probably is.

The author Madeleine L'Engle is gone -- and I bitterly regret that I never got around to writing her a fan letter to say how much joy her work has brought me over the years. Death can be so final for those of us left behind with things undone.

Rennie, another neighbor, but unlike Mearl, far too young for this final passage, fell ill while a group of us were working on a long-postponed friendship quilt for her and her husband. She had treatment and seemed to be holding her own so, though the quilt was completed, we waited to surprise her with it at a time when her daughters could be with her. Her sudden death caught us all by surprise; the quilt was presented to her family at a memorial service.

Years ago when my father died, my brother and I were cleaning out his home. In the back of his refrigerator was a bottle of very good champagne which my husband and I had given my parents for an anniversary some ten years before. "Oh, it's so expensive," they said. "We'll save it for another time." A few years after that anniversary, my mother died and my father moved, taking the champagne with him, still waiting for the right moment.

My brother and I decided not to let this go any farther. That evening we opened the expensive champagne, poured it out into my mother's crystal and prepared for a treat.

Of course it had turned to vinegar.