Earlier this week, I received an email from a dear friend – updating me
on the health of her husband (cancer) and inquiring on the
status of a mutual friend.   I responded, and her response
to me left me with a feeling – that I needed to
post this. Even in the knowing, it was
good to find someone else who did as well.

[Obviously, names have been changed; feel free to find your own.]

. . .

Dearest Beth,

Leah is fine, but I so understand your comments regarding Dan. I feel
the same about Leah. When I call in the morning, and she doesn’t answer,
I immediately wonder if something has happened. Fortunately,
there are lots of days where there is no power
where she lives or issues with the phone lines in between. Or
days when her night has been horrid and she has finally
gotten to sleep with aid of medication and she doesn’t
even hear the phone.

She knows I worry, but we’ve reached a wonderful place of knowing
– and appreciating the gift that is now. If there
is grace in growing older, it is coming to an understanding of
what matters. We’ll sometimes laugh about stuff we could be doing
but we’re not – quite simply because age gives us the wisdom
to know that the road isn’t quite as long and we’re not going
to fill it up with things that have no
value.

I’m sorry to hear about Dan, but another part of me is reminded
of a story from years ago. A dear friend spoke of her father’s passing
with cancer and I commented how hard it must be to watch a
loved one go slowly. She smiled back and said that the offset
was something so many don’t have – notice. Her family had
been given time to say aloud everything they wanted to say,
to share what they needed to share. The end was
still hard, but the ‘afterward’ much easier without
the regrets over what had
never been said.

There are a world of people out there who would give
anything for one more day, one more hour, one more time……..
to say. They had no notice. It’s a
wonderful thing to think we never hold back, but we do……..we
keep from each other the most intimate of our feelings
and then we have nowhere to put them.

May you find a place most tender.

Love,
Me

of loves
not so many
ten thousand
one more
than a faceless reminder
of where I began

on paths
so familiar
as claimed by my shoes
the shade of my scarlet
to bloom

held to a silence
where nothing
is said
of graces
unhurried release

where distance
is none
but for traces
of time
and a place
they remember me
still

. . .