Carolyn passed this afternoon. Her health actually worked against her in the end because it took longer for her body to yield. Throughout her final week on this old earth, she mainly rested in peace; now she lives in true Peace for all eternity.
Of course it is sad to lose a loved one, but it reminds me of that old cliche - better to have loved and lost and all... It's a cliche b/c it's true, I guess. I'm thankful for a close family who loves one another. It's harder to say goodbye, but I keep reminding myself that hard goodbyes usually follow a greater gift.
The kids are sad - one maybe inappropriately so given the nature of their relationship - but I think the sadness points to a couple of things for which I give thanks: 1) a tender heart, and 2) a life fairly void of hardship/loss. Wes once scoffed at the strong sadness the kids sometimes felt in response to what we know as adults are pretty frivolous issues, but I was stopped in my tracks when I realized they've had so little "real" loss that their "small" issues seem pretty big.
Speaking of, we've been listening through the Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Events series, and I was talking about it with another mom who loves to read and listen to books with her kids. I began to recommend it to her as our kids have loved it but realized it would actually be a fully terrible read/listen for her 4 kids as they are adopted and would not love to listen to a story of 3 orphans who suffer one loss after another. I realized I've never had to question things like that - stories that revolve around sadness (like orphans AKA most every Disney cartoon movie ever made). Our kids are so secure (and therefore oblivious), they can listen to hard things in a state of blissful ignorance.
This gratituesday is rather dark.
Mountaintops are beautiful because of valleys, though, right? Both the journey through them and the view across them?
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