Big fat flakes of snow are drifting lazily to the ground... in all this peaceful beauty, it is hard to believe that a dear friend can have lost her husband when only a few weeks ago he was hale and hearty. It's hard to believe that one of my readers too has lost her husband suddenly. And though the peace of new fallen snow is all around me it is hard to believe that the horrors of Japan's recent disaster continues to unfold moment by moment. I, like most of you, have watched and listened to the news coming out of Japan and wonder how in the world they will recover. It seems too much some times, to turn on my computer and hear any more bad news. We rail against God or whatever might be your choice of belief systems. But in the end there is nothing we can do to change what has already come to pass. All we can do is go forward... focus on making what's left of our lives better than it was and appreciate what you have had, what you have now, and what you will have.
Japan will recover but right now they need time to look around them and find that which is lost... they need time to find their heart. They need time to find the lost photo albums of families washed out to sea. They need to think about the very real people who are lost... the wives, the husbands, the baby children that will not be there anymore. And we need to respect that and support them in whatever way we can... and mostly we need to listen to their stories so that the people who have been lost can be remembered and respected. It is no small thing to carry the memories of loved ones forward because it is the way that those we love live on. By talking about them and holding them in our hearts we carry them forward into the future.
There is a reason for blogging. We express our opinions and sometimes they are misguided and if mine have been then I apologize, but in the end, if a forest fire swept through and wiped me and my family out there will still be this. A little bit of me... a little bit of us, for someone to carry into the future. There but for the grace of God, go I. There are those of us who will get mad and we will rail and some of us will say stupid things in the face of a disaster, but in such turmoil and loss it is hard to keep our heads. Eventually though, sense will return and that is the point at which we need to look around and be the best that we can be. And then and only then will we reach out to those around us, and find the heart of humanity... the good that I believe is in all of us.
I am going to go now and knit. I am going to knit a counterpane from Piecework magazine that Grace Coolidge probably never thought that a woman many miles away and many years into the future would be reading about and knitting. I am going to do that because it is a good morning to remember those from the past... and to be thankful I am alive. With all that peaceful snow falling, I think it is a good time to reflect on life, and memories. And I will listen to the stories from Japan on CBC radio, and I will think of my friends and their lost husbands. I will make peace with the world around me by remembering those who are gone... and I will pray for them... and I will pray for us...
They've got it over, and we've got it to come.
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