Friends and Neighbors

Today was the memorial service for my mom and dad's friend, Jim. It was the first service I've been to since mom's. It was about as hard as I expected, and got a little harder when the video montage played and a picture of Jim and Nancy and my mom and dad came on the screen. I think I let out a gasp and then the tears started flowing. My eyes hurt right now. I watched Jim's wife, Nancy, a lot today. She looked so exhausted and beat down. I hurt for her. I plan to stay in touch with her. She is so lonely and sad and I could truly feel her pain. She lost one of her best friends (my mom) and her husband in a matter of months. And you can see it in her face.

I watched the video of a young Jim and Nancy. And in my head I replayed mom's video. A life lived flashed in moments on a screen. The minister mentioned a story when he was standing at a cemetery and a man asked him if he knew the most important part of a headstone...he didn't wait for an answer and went on to say it was the dash between the dates. That dash holds all the life lived, no matter how long or how short. I thought that was pretty profound.

I picture mom showing Jim around Heaven. Just as I pictured my mom's friend Eileen meeting mom when she arrived and showing her around.

I stopped at the cemetery on the way up today and found that mom is getting a new upstairs neighbor (that's the picture above). I also finally stopped to find where Eileen was buried (that's the other picture) and was pleased that she and mom could almost wave to one another. Thus the title of the post...I thought a lot about all the people that have been lost in the last year, including the new person that will be joining my mom in the Pieta at the cemetery. The cemetery was busy with preparation for lots of services today. My mom has joined friends and has friends joining her and new people she had never met in her life on earth.

Yet so many of us have been left behind. And the pain I saw in Nancy's face today was real and tangible and I could simply "feel" what she was feeling.

This is life. Death is part of it. But damn it is hard for those of left behind.

Today was long. It was full of tears. It was full of salt being poured into wounds that I thought were closed, but are obviously still open. I suppose today was just the first of many days like this over the course of my life.

It was a day of reflection. Those can be hard. But they can be good too.

I miss mom a lot today. But I hope she and Jim are laughing a lot together. That thought gives me some solace.

Rest in Peace Jim. You are missed.