Sometimes, when you wake up in the morning, the newspaper isn’t there. But there is someone you can call, and eventually it will appear.
"One brief shining moment..."
Sometimes, when you go to make a sandwich for lunch, you find that you only have one slice of bread, or not enough cheese – or that the mayo has gone off. But you can always go to the store and get some more.
Sometimes, when you go to bed at night, the sheets are rumpled, your feet are cold, the person you sleep with is already snoring. But you can straighten the sheets, get a hot water bottle or socks, or gently nudge the snorer.
Sometimes, though, the people who used to cheer you, encourage you, boost you, challenge you, love you when you needed it, and loved you when you didn’t know it, are not there anymore.
There isn’t any way to get them back – you can’t call anyone, you can’t go anywhere to get a replacement, and you can’t nudge them back – they are just gone.
Where do they go? And why have they left? Nobody really knows. Oh, some try to make up stories about where they might be – or what they might be doing now -- or how they haven’t really left.
But the hard truth is they are gone. And they aren’t coming back. Not as you knew them, not as you want them to be, not as you need them, not as they were.
The reality is that you had them and now they are gone. Lost. You cannot find them, they will not be available to you again, as they were, as you knew them.
Tears will help make this a reality, and the reality will help you recognize that what you had was real. More real than what you think you need now. Remember the reality of what you had – even the hard parts. Even the parts that annoyed you, that made you angry. The parts that may have wounded you. Those parts are maybe more real than what you think you long to have again. The best parts – those will always be the best parts. But don’t forget the whole part – the whole person – the entire being that you once knew, that you will always love.
It is loving all the parts – even the broken parts – if you can remember all of it, then you will have a talisman that you can really keep. And memory, memorials, must be real, must be whole, because a broken talisman, a partial memory, is only part of the truth. And the truth of the whole, the truth of the truth, is that it all matters. All of it.
