scribblechic

My experience of death has been largely abstract; loved ones who disappeared outside the routine or physical space of my days. My world was small enough that I escaped the nearness of loss; my grief lonely and private.

This year I have watched acquaintances and friends mourn illness and loss in contrasting shades of peace and sorrow. A young mother taken inexplicably early; parents and grandparents lost unexpectedly. In each passing the grief was as tangible as the life within the loss.

As a witness to another’s memories, I am humbled by the fullness of lives that intersect our own. Like passengers on a train to nowhere in particular the details of old joy and passion remind us of our own years, lost enthusiasm and hard-earned personal accomplishments.

I am left wondering which platforms we might revisit and what journeys linger in want of a beginning.