Oh, gawd...not her again...

This piece of art is called "Circle Tradition"   I like it's vibrancy of colour, but even more I like the reminder that life is a circle...and when I can remember that I am part of that circle, I need never be alone.


  I like being part of the blogging world, little corner that I inhabit.  I like the personal relationships I have forged here, some close, others a little less so.  I like that I can come here and pour my heart out, or make you laugh or astound you with my domestic engineering skills. lol  I like that I can come here and be defended or be comforted or be schooled.  I have been blogging here since August of 2008...


 I thought today...no more of the gloom and doom  posts.  No more about my health or my sorrows. Just keep it light and fun and ...

  And then my phone rang.

 This morning a dear friend called me to tell me he has been diagnosed with cancer. A relatively (hopefully, usually) treatable cancer.  He is optimistic. I felt like I was punched in my already sore gut.  We talked for a long time... he will come through this with flying colors, I am sure.  That's just the kind of guy he is. One of the many many things I love about him.

  My reaction to this news was to go on a whirlwind cleaning tour of my desk and office and living room. 


This evening, I got another message that an old dear friend of mine in California, who had been diagnosed  some months back with terminal cancer (I cannot remember for the life of me right now what kind it was)  had taken his own life because the pain was too much and the meds weren't touching it anymore.  He sent his partner out and shot himself.  Typical solution for him...I wasn't surprised by it, necessarily. Just gobsmacked by the thought that I wouldn't get one more chance to see him or talk to him.  That he is gone.


  So, the Pollyanna post I had planned for tonight has gone awry.  Life kinda stepped in and snatched it away today.  However...this past week has seen babies being born, people getting married, people getting divorced, and people dying.  Birthing---living---dying.  All part of this Circle of Life.  And as I age, I'm sure to see even more of this, and be even more jolted by the face of death.  None of us get out of  this alive, I guess.  


  And Lori said it..." Head down, one foot in front of the other."  Grief does not kill us. Directly. It is just another part of this circle tradition.  It is a place where we learn the depth of our emotional core. The value of our lives. The strengths and weaknesses that we maybe didn't know we had. And the true connections we have to the people who wander into our lives, staying for a bit, and leaving. Always too soon.


I'm going to spend some time tonight in meditation, celebrating the life of a man who always put others first, who was there when I was new to this sober life, talking me off ledges, showing me how it was done.  A man who was constantly trying to get me to take one of his potbellied pigs. A man who lived his life in the most honest, truest fashion of anyone I'd ever known.  And now, I want to believe, is on to his next Great Adventure...(in the words of Buzz Lightyear)  Infinity and Beyond !!!!




Namaste.