We have just completed the first day of official summer. I say "official" since we have had the oppressive heat and humidity coexistent with midwestern summer once the cold, chill of our non-spring passed. More accurately EVERY time it passed, since we went through several cycles of a far-from-typical spring. I went outside in the morning to see that the vegetable garden has for the most past dried up from an excess of night rain and early AM sun and heat (almost sounds oxymoronic). I think it more accurately steamed to death but the result is the same - a return trip to the nursery to gather what plants I could and a replanting of them set for today.
I am not over my outburst of last posting. I feel I sounded too whining , as in "why me?' which is an attitude I dislike and try to avoid. I really think I feel more "why them" especially in regard to the grands and their hurt.. And I do accept that bad things happen to good people, but I also believe that no matter what the intellectual comprehension we sometimes carry our emotions a little high and feel more deeply the inadequacy of our understanding. I think that is where I am. I want to see clearly what I can not.
I do believe that faith is most active in the space between rational thought and that which is beyond understanding. Therefore I must wrap this situation in faith. Sounds good. I have a small framed picture on the wall of what is now my office. It has an illustration of a bird on a branch and notes at the end of a narrative words to the effect that faith is when you have reached beyond what is known and one of two things will happen: something will be there to stand on or you will be taught how to fly. I found that picture when my brother was dying from ALS. We crossed that point of faith many times over those years as his condition changed only to meet it again in a new situation. It has comforted me in the intervening years and I pray it does again. Truth be known faith has been as much of a roadmap as I have had these past months and I think I am being taught how to fly. Unfortunately, I also remember my learning how to fly aircraft and recall that there are mishaps and incidents and days when your mind doesn't wrap around the necessary processes no matter what.
Now that it is summer we have passed through almost three months of this new life - a first trimester as it were. No, I reject that image. I think the only new life image I can deal with is the one I found for our church widow(er) group, "the third half of life". It is what and how I feel - the cup missing the saucer, the broken set, the leftover part, as well as the one who is given the task of making something beyond what was planned for in life once the life as known has ended. I see all sorts of possibilities of growth in that role. I have thought again these past days about Ted Kennedy and the so called Kennedy curse. I recall the common understanding of the curse was that so many Kennedy's died untimely deaths. I held a different notion in that Senator Kennedy endured the curse of having to lay to rest so many of those dear to him. I felt I understood it then and now know that I do.
So it seems that the tasks are not finished, or even imagined in most cases. I must puzzle out how to live this new 3rd half of my life, learn to deal with the curse of losing so many of the nearest and dearest to me - and most gone before their appointed years, have faith that I will be taught how to fly. So, while Ben takes up, what I whimsically call, his heavenly entry level upper management existence and learns all that he must, I, earthbound, am learning, too. It will take more than just one more season but when I reflect on the passing of summer in a few months I will feel some additional insight and understanding or I will fly better.
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