Bertie entertained Bodhi for countless hours telling him tales of lions and owls, and sharing insights about angels, fairies and love. At the end of our visit, my dear soul-sister and friend, Auntie Yve arrived. Our travel duo quickly became a traveling trio. Yve performed an impromptu concert with Uncle Leroy and all too soon it was time to say good bye to Farmhome and Aunt Bertie. Leaving Aunt Bertie is like diving into icy water. The warmth and peace of her abode, shrouded in prayer and buoyed by peace, are always difficult to release. But there is a time for everything and the time had come to drive home. And so with Yve as copilot and Bodhi as entertainer we set off.In St. Louis we took a break to explore the famous archand enjoy the viewAnd after twelve more hours on the road we were home.
Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the
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