The world is still beautiful. Perhaps that’s part of the ache and the incongruity of it all. We were not meant for death, and yet we die. And life goes on, the growing and the fading and the living and the dying and we mark our days in unease between the shadow of death and the beauty and vivacity of life that points us to eternity. When I look around on days like today, see the wind gusting through the clear sky, sweeping clouds into feathery froth, and playing with the flower laden branches of trees, it is almost too much. Too much color in the flowers, too much brilliance in the sunshine, too much detail in the swaying palm trees. Too much of everything. And yet to dispense with the beauty in the midst of real loss, loss that the families and friends of the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting are experiencing, or inevitable loss that hasn’t been realized yet, would be wrong and twisted. So the world is still beautiful, only…colder, perhaps.

I have been surprised at the loneliness that sweeps in at the thought of my mom dying. Not necessarily the loneliness at the thought of her no longer being there, though that is daunting and real enough, but the gigantic chasm of loneliness that comes simply with the thought of death. A loneliness that an email or hug or even a conversation can’t come close to filling. A loneliness that seems to swallow any move to fill it because it just isn’t enough. I find myself simultaneously wanting people and not having the energy for them. I find that people are here and not here. There are gaps that I thought would be filled by specific people that remain empty and I wonder how long thoses places have been vacant without my knowing. Then there are other people who are unexpectedly there, whose hugs and kindness can immediately reduce me to tears. People who don’t necessarily know what to say, but who at least resist saying stupid things about God. I don’t expect my supervisors to “get it” and be there in a more substantial and tangible way than some of my friends. But I guess I don’t really know what to expect in any of this.