In the wind and night sky....

Our daughters came to live with us shortly after the death of their mother.  Someone had told them in the days after her death that the first star they saw each night was their mother looking down on them.  It seemed to comfort them, and so each night we all just somehow naturally drifted home in time to watch the night sky for the first star.  It gave those girls something to hang on to, some sense that their mother was still a part of their days.


Some friends recently gave me a beautiful set of wind chimes with a note explaining that perhaps it might be nice to remember that Shawn was still with me whenever I heard the chimes.  The days after I hung them were cold hard days of snow and ice.  As I was shoveling my steps and cleaning off my car (again and again) I was aware that there seemed to always be at least enough of a breeze to keep a note or two resonating, and often enough to make a lovely melody.  Somehow, those moments did not seem so hard, as I was reminded that he is always beside me, always in my heart, that everything I do has a piece of him woven into it.  Now, some days there is just nothing stirring as I come and go.....and on those days I am not above giving them a little tap.  Some days, on the days when, as Anne LaMott talks about, the lazy Susan of grief has stopped on anger, I give them a thump and say, "Don't you leave me!  Don't!".  And there have been a couple of times I have wanted to just take them down, wanted to say that I do not want to just sense his presence, I want to see and feel him right here right now.  Mostly they just give me joy, and a sweet reminder of my love for him, and his for me.
Speaking of Anne Lamott, I'll close with this quote that I  hold to as I try to make it though. 


“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”