Achieving Clarity: Surely Goodness and Mercy

This was a weekend for reflection. I came home Friday ready to relax my mind and body. Instead I was greeted by the news that a neighbor and friend from church had died suddenly this week. Two doors down and I had no idea.

I didn’t find his death shocking because of his age or general health. I find it shocking because I hadn’t even considered it happening. Because it was yet another death in that generation that separates me from death. Because he leaves a wife who loved him and shared his life, and her pain makes me wince. And so my weekend began with a funeral, a farewell to a wonderful person.

Afterwards, I met with a friend to create a gift for another friend. I took individual strands of silk and marino wool and through the waft and the warp, through friction and pressure and the saturation of water that reminded me of the tears of a lifetime, I coaxed those fibers into a silky woolen scarf that will warm my friend.

Sunday afternoon I met my sister at an estate auction where a lifetime’s possessions of a man she knew were being sold. Table after table told the story of a life. A love of photography. A well traveled, well read man. A long marriage. His life had ended and was on display for all to place value on.