It made me feel weird.
What an impulse we have. The remaining. The desperate instinct to send into the world some signal when the absence is felt. He lived! She lived! We get the park benches and the plaques and the slabs of concrete and apparently the commercial spots. Such a raw need, to feel that they will go on. Some foreshadowing plea that somehow, might we all.
Meanwhile, moths seem to be eating our winter wear and I'm afraid to check my collection of old journals and writing that are also stored under the bed. What if there are holes in it all? It occurred to me the other day that when I go, there's a strong likelihood that someone might just take a few glances and trash the whole collection. Or feel like it might be improper to read through my old writing. Or boring.
I guess a part of me has always hoped that in some way my writing would become somewhat of a legacy. Emily. Vivian. The ones who were cherished only after they left.
But even that is too romantic.
My friend lost her uncle recently and I asked her to share a memory with me. One summer Uncle Randy took her and some cousins on a swim across the entire lake. Can't you see that so clearly? Can't you just put yourself right in the middle of that swim? What a loving and adventurous and brave gift to give. Effort made. Time spent.
I'm just over an hour into a listen of Future Stories: What's Next?, a Big History look at how we understand ourselves in time. Apparently, there's a whole school of thinking that suggests past, present, and future are all equally real... nothing is ever truly lost.
If there's truth in
always was and always will be,
world without end,
would it take away anything from the preciousness?
Isn't our whole crux and sense of meaning dependent on a start and a stop?
I'm going to sit with all of that. A loss is still a loss.
And yet.