On Sunday, hard wooden pews and sunlight filtered through stained glass, half closed eyes on dark floors and hands folded in laps. On Monday, spent flowers plucked from frost bitten plants and trash picked up from the side of the road, heads warm under hand knit hats and borrowed books from the lowest shelves. On any given day, God, Mother Nature, church, religion, it’s all around.
Over the weekend a young lady named Hannah died. She was the youngest of three siblings, all of whom had Batten disease. I don't know the family, and I won't say I can't imagine their grief. I can imagine, I just don't want to. I do hope her parents are able to feel peace, to find places where comfort folds itself around them like wings and small voices pipe encouragement within.
When Celia died, we did not choose a spot for her body to rest. Cemeteries seem to exist to comfort the living, to consecrate places dedicated not so much to the mourned but to the act of mourning itself. For us, a grave sounds like a place of death, a place we would not be inclined to visit. We are more interested in places, besides our own hearts, where Celia lives.
BSPC memorial garden. A thin place. Insta image via rht3627
She doesn’t fill our living space or make daily demands, but she’s still
here, very present. We've discovered spots where the distance between
heaven and earth collapses and becomes thin, times when the divine comes
closer and the transcendent can almost be caught. Cathedrals and cemeteries,
yes, but libraries and airports and gardens and kitchens, too. She's
all around.
Tuck keeps selecting the same thick, fleece footed jammies, jungle green with a monkey print. They end up unzipped and inside out and crumpled at the foot of the bed by morning. He doesn't choose them because they're soft or because they're warm, but because they were Celia's. Perhaps they feel thin, or a bit like angel wings.
JEB
