Emerging

This year, I feel that we are coming through it. So many of us face challenges, those that are spoken and those that are hidden in our hearts. Loss, difficult change, transformation...and finally we come out the other side as people marked by this endless journey.

In our communities it is sometimes difficult to know how to respond. Do I send flowers when some people say they only die too? Do we cook even though the overflowing lasagnas have already filled up the counters? Is it sad when a divorce frees a friend to be who she always wanted to become? Is it hopeful to see beauty and strength in the eyes of a fatherless daughter? The stories flow and flow, sometimes making our backs bend and our shoulders stoop. It can be hard to hold them all, it can sometimes make me want to close the door and turn inward. Tending to my own is sometimes enough. I never stay there for long, though, because my own story is held too. Not everyone knows all the chapters but the knowing hugs and calls to come over, to be together, are why we are here. Why we gather this day and mark the gratitude that even the most challenged among us feel, just to be here.