April.
Spring is dressed up in all her finery. I’ve learned to appreciate Spring without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Discovered order out of chaos. I’m a person who likes traditions and memories as much as I like knowing there is hope in tomorrow, being aware of the possible of each moment. SERENDIPITY!
Once, April began an adventure to a yesterday I chose not to remember. Now the journey is creative, collaborative, filled with a different abandon. Paradigm Shift.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Recently my daughter Sarah, a graduate film student asked people to submit experiences about “loss” or being “lost”: anything from losing keys to more profound experiences. St. Anthony certainly came to mind since I’ve evoked him plenty during my life: “Tony, Tony please come round…..”. Ultimately, I submitted something a little more reflective.
Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart! Zephaniah 3:14
Beauty. Loss. Struggle. Finding a way…
When I was very young I went with my parents and older brother to the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport. I remember the bright lights and music of the midway, the smell of the carnival food. Somehow I was separated from them. Hazy memory: the loudspeaker blares my name, my mother calls for me, my father picks me up. I am safe. I used to dream that memory.
April 19, 1985. I’m called to the phone during a choir rehearsal. Busy, I say. Take a message, I say. Urgent. Come with abandon. I take the call. My brother with news. The minute I hear his first word….. I know.
The unsettling confusion I remembered encountering on the midway returned. Loss. Lost. Change so visceral you can taste it. Until that day if anyone had ever asked my greatest fear I would’ve said: ‘losing my mother’. I was twenty-five. Naive. Sheltered……Unconditionally loved. 
My mother had experienced loss: her only brother in his 30’s, the 
month before I was born; her mother, other relatives, friends . I witnessed her strength, her intelligence, her faith in life’s scenarios: joys and struggles. It has been one of her greatest lessons to me. In her short life, 59 years, she showed me how to live with style and grace.
month before I was born; her mother, other relatives, friends . I witnessed her strength, her intelligence, her faith in life’s scenarios: joys and struggles. It has been one of her greatest lessons to me. In her short life, 59 years, she showed me how to live with style and grace.
I’ve wondered how I could ever be the person my parents were: honest, involved, fun, loving, warm. They raised me to live an independent life…as me, not them. Exactly want I for my own children. Because of that example there is no loss; I am not lost or abandoned.My parents words have stuck with me, reminding me to be a person of faith and not fear, guiding me along the right path, to love all people and walk humbly. Even when I have stumbled, their wisdom and spirit have brought truth to a world often absent of it. Not the least of which: I was born in their heart. Because of it I carry a piece of theirs in mine. . . for the journey. . .with sheer abandon…but never abandoned.
Here’s to the beautiful people finding a way….
BethSings 