The last three days have been dedicated to last, loving efforts on behalf of my dearest friend; helping her family to give her the 'send off' that would honor her life of love for them and so many others and her life of faith in our Loving God. That we managed to do. Today she was buried next to her beloved husband among the pines in an old hillside cemetary. Their head stone reads: "Adele and Antonin Tutter - In love they planted a tree, built a house and made a family."
It seems to me that when you pass the 'fifty-somethings' you enter the stage of losses, the stage of having to say, "Goodbye." Perhaps I am among the fortunate few who still have my parents and have not lost a sibling. I do not have a large family in which deaths have been recorded frequently. But I have entered the stage where one begins to lose precious friends. How selfishly I mourn the passing of those who could always be depended upon to shore me up, to give encouragement, to offer consolation in trial, to make me laugh and to support me in faith.
With the loss of this very special friend it feels as if I have been left to finally stand up straight on my own and grow to full stature, to be all that my dear friend always said that I could be. It seems that might just be the finest way to honor her memory.
1 comment:
When a good friend and teaching colleague died too soon, I talked about it with my retreat director. I told him how gifted a teacher he had been. He told me that now I must take up his work and fill the gap he has left.
As you wrote in your post, it is something we are given in lieu of our loss.
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