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One year later
Nov. 18th, 2005 08:17 amToday is the first anniversary of Arlina's death. A year has passed.
One of my friends wrote this: "a year is enough time to form and file a memory. It takes a year to confirm a hope, and it takes a year to understand a loss.
It seems like a year would be enough time, but it really isn't. As the time passes, the memory and the understanding of the loss continue to evolve and change, but they never really become fixed.
I woke up this morning and thought for a moment about how, in her pain, Arlina became something awe-inspiring. It was as if everything about her was distilled down to just an essence of goodness. I will never forget how in the last days of her life, when her pain was again becoming unbearable, she continued to give of herself to everyone around her. She comforted, consoled and shared her wisdom. She loved all the way to the end, and that was what she left behind.
So it is too with my pain and grief. What was once the worst pain imaginable has now been distilled into something much different that I could have ever expected. The emptiness created by the grief has slowly been replaced with joy--the joy of knowing and remembering that I was so fully and completely loved.
She left me with so much--so many gifts. Perhaps the greatest of these is that she left me with everything I needed to be able to recognize within myself the person she always saw in me. She always said that she loved me more, and now I understand.
Love never fails
One of my friends wrote this: "a year is enough time to form and file a memory. It takes a year to confirm a hope, and it takes a year to understand a loss.
It seems like a year would be enough time, but it really isn't. As the time passes, the memory and the understanding of the loss continue to evolve and change, but they never really become fixed.
I woke up this morning and thought for a moment about how, in her pain, Arlina became something awe-inspiring. It was as if everything about her was distilled down to just an essence of goodness. I will never forget how in the last days of her life, when her pain was again becoming unbearable, she continued to give of herself to everyone around her. She comforted, consoled and shared her wisdom. She loved all the way to the end, and that was what she left behind.
So it is too with my pain and grief. What was once the worst pain imaginable has now been distilled into something much different that I could have ever expected. The emptiness created by the grief has slowly been replaced with joy--the joy of knowing and remembering that I was so fully and completely loved.
She left me with so much--so many gifts. Perhaps the greatest of these is that she left me with everything I needed to be able to recognize within myself the person she always saw in me. She always said that she loved me more, and now I understand.
Love never fails
