Call Me Careless

      
 I once read that to lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.     

      Call me careless.  I have lost both of my parents—my mother almost ten years ago and my father just recently.  After my mother died I spent the next several years adrift—lost in a sea of grief.  It felt like I was in a small boat and that the Queen Mary had just passed in front of me, trapping me in her wake.  Gradually I was able to paddle my way out it and back to a calmer place.

     Now I have lost my father.  I heard the warning whistle and knew that the storm was imminent.  I braced myself, expecting hurricane force grief to come bearing down on me. Instead I felt only a slight breeze.  Unexpected tranquility on a cool night. 

     It has never before occurred to me that there are varying degrees of despair. I believed that the pain of loss was as infinite as death itself.  Anguish is anguish, or so I thought. But this time around it feels so different.

     When my mom died I was grieving not just for her, but for both of my parents—my mother because she was gone and my father because he was left.  Now they are both gone and technically I'm an orphan, if that is possible at age 40-something.  This time it is different.  The sadness I feel is mostly for myself, my daughters and my unborn grandchild, who will never meet his or her Grandpa Coyote and Grandma Di.  Sometimes my sadness is overshadowed by my own embarrassment.  Any daughter worth her sea salt would be ashamed to admit that twinges of happiness eclipse her sorrow.  I am happy that my parents are together again and I am happy that my dad’s suffering is over, as is my mom's waiting.  They are happy because they are together again, riding into a sunset that promises them an eternity together.  And it is because of that promise, that I am at peace.  I am praying that I will find it easier to live with carelessness than it was to live with misfortune.

And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:43

    

"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime." - Martin Luther