First: I would like to say a big fat F* you to cancer. This insane disease that seems to effect so many people has taken the life of a co-worker and friend this week. I will be attending services for her this afternoon. I am outraged at the brutal and random nature of this plague. At the same time I feel so helpless and out of control. No amount of human grief will make a difference, and I understand that. I wish I had the power to eradicate cancer from existence, but I also understand the balance in all things, and that for each light there must be a dark. I'm sure in it's place would come some other suffering for us to bear.
On this week which should have been focused on family, friends and celebration, I was focused on the grief of losing a bright soul.
It gives me a profound sense of sadness to know she is not in this world any more. It also throws my life into sharp focus, of all the weeks for something so horrendous to happen, this was the one in which I had difficulty truly sharing how I felt. In a time when all are listing the many blessings they are thankful for, some being possessions, family, friends and other generalities. I wish I could list all the many pieces of my life that are so integral to making it whole. I know that this Thanksgiving, I was sad but also grateful to have known my co-worker and friend for the short time I did. She was a shoulder to cry on when we lost another co-worker and friend a few years back, and ever since that day I have seen her in an entirely new light. A feisty and outspoken woman of much character, who loved people deeply and truly cared for the well being of those around her. She was high strung and anxious, demanding and honest. She said bold truths without blinking, and knew the importance of remembering those we love.Platitudes about being thankful for "family" and "friends" do not do justice for the true gratitude I feel for each person who has touched my life. I am astounded that I have been so lucky as to have known great and incredible people in my time. I was raised by two flawed but loving parents, who see the good in me no matter my faults. I have upstanding and amazing and strong and vulnerable siblings who help to ease my path as we each walk through life together. I was given the gift of being a birthmother to the most amazing little boy, I was also given all the tools to make the right choices for him, and to move beyond my grief when the time was right. I have the most gorgeous little girl, who touches my life daily and makes me see the simplicity of what life is. I was blessed enough to meet a man who truly complements me in every way, who sees me clearly and loves me through it all. A man who allows me to cry and talk about things openly in my own emotional way. A man who was willing to fill the hole in our little family and make it complete.
The human emotional experience is an amazing one. While I glory in the amazing and awesome experiences and relationships that have brought me to this point, I also mourn a loss and hope that no more are imminent. I wish there was an instruction book for these experiences, I wish there was a roadmap to make choices easier.
There is no roadmap. No easy way to know that your experiences and choices will be good, bad, or make no difference in the end. It is the hardship and also the beauty of life, to know that you will impact events, but to have no inkling of what that impact might be. I only hope that in the end my good outweighs the bad, and that I can be seen as the well-intentioned, if flawed, individual I am.
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