To Everything a Season

TO EVERYTHING THERE IS A SEASON. . .

That phrase is oft associated with song lyrics but it's actually from the Bible.

To everything there is a season,and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Holidays are a time of joy and also one of reflection. Most of us have lost someone close to us in our lives. A parent, a spouse, a friend, a beloved pet. It does not matter what form love takes, it becomes part of us, and losing it is like peeling away that outer layer of skin, leaving nerve endings exposed to the cold. We all know that every life must end, but when it ends much too young or abruptly, it is just so hard to accept. For the true majestic, incandescent blindness of love is its willful refusal to fully acknowledge that at some time death will take someone from our lives here.

I remember a moment four summers ago, when I was staying at home after my Dad had suffered a mild stroke, walking into the home of my childhood, carrying groceries and seeing my Dad so still on the couch, it appeared he wasn't breathing. For just an instant, everything went into high relief, like a scene in a 3-D movie - the Safeway bag dead weight in my arm, the sun glinting off my old piano against the wall, Dad's slippers on the floor. My whole life suspended, bathed in bright June sunlight. In the short terrible space between that moment and the next, when he opened his eyes and smiled, I got a glimpse of grief as it would look in this new incarnation. And perhaps, for those of us who have had that glimpse, it is partly the encroaching darkness that makes the light so vivid.

Artists understand this so well. Think of the paintings you have seen in a museum, that life force depicted in paintings of luscious fruit and wildlife, a ripe red apple next to a fox so carefully wrought that a single drop of blood can be seen along a fine whisker. In studies of faces that bloom in layers of ancient varnish, the curve of a a child's cheek revealed gradually, the glint of light on a coat of arms or the promising, secret gleam in a redheaded woman's eye that belie the fact that the persons in these visages may be hundreds of years gone. For that moment, in those paintings they are still with us.

I look at portraits of myself and then look at that of my own daughter, wondering if decades from now, the upcoming generations of our women will remember the strength and love from which they were born.

I look at a photo of my Mom taken in the woods she loved, long before she began that fight for her life. A heavy smoker, cancer was diagnosed when she was only 42 years old. I remember watching as a youngster, when Dad would come home to that same house, with shadowed corners and open windows, in the town where I grew up, and he'd collapse on the sofa from worry and exhaustion. Losing my mother seemed impossible, she was never so alive as in those last years when she fought so hard to stay that way, still death came too soon for her age, and for mine. Yet she is still with me daily. Whenever you've been touched by love, be it of a parent, child or friend, even after they're been taken from you , a heart-print lingers, so that you're always reminded of the feeling of being cared for, knowing that, to someone, you mattered. You do not need a photo to remember that.

For now my Dad is here on this earth and though there are days he's a little befuddled and often forgets my name, he is still with me; with my stepmom, a kind and good woman, lost in the shadows of her own mind, dancing to memories we can't see, a smile always on her face.

For now, for this season, I'll concentrate on the good days; for those conversations together, for quiet mornings reading from a book together, even if neither remember my name. Every hour, every day is grace. And I am going to savor that, for it's not what you've lost that counts, its what you do with what you have left. There will be time for mourning later.

For at this Christmas time, we need to focus on not what might have been taken away, but what has been given to us, not with the love we may not have in human form, but the love that remains with us always. Focus on the many gifts you have. Gentle breezes and tailwinds, the laughter of friends and family. A job if you are so fortunate, or the skills to care for your family as best you can. A snug home and people who love you, a warm furry heart by your side. Concentrating on the good things, so while we still are, we can still hope.