From thirst
...which is also to say that ten years ago today, my father passed away very suddenly. Tomorrow would have been my parent's thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. The day after that it will be my twenty-seventh birthday. I can still remember the cake that caring and concerned family members purchased for me, sliced and set in front of me on my seventeenth birthday. I can still remember how the only thing I even noticed about that day was the way that the crumbs stuck in my throat.
But loss pushes open a huge space in your heart that can, once again, fill up. Like a man-made reservoir, at first the landscape is remarkably sterile, but in time, it will be reclaimed by the earth and become part of a thriving ecosystem. In that way, loss also begets hope.
For the ability to reduce and simplify those most complex of feelings, so that you can sort and count them like change. For the chance encounters that greet you unexpectedly, like a white tree hovering over a lake. For the evolving landscape, and for all of the people that you miss.
For all of the ways in which it is possible to catch your breath.
xo
