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We had a funeral yesterday. Great-Grandma Helen was nearly a hundred so her death was not unexpected, but in the end that doesn’t take away the grief, it only changes it. She had been sick for a very long time, and she rarely remembered present day or knew exactly what was happening around her. So that in many ways she was gone long before her body knew to leave. I have had grief both after long illness and age, and the sudden, shock of young, healthy people dieing. If I had to choose, I will take the grief of the old, over the grief of the young, because at least there is no worry that they were taken before they had a chance to fulfill their potential. There is none of that, if only, or why? Great-Grandma Helen had a full and wonderful life. She raised two fine sons, and lost a beloved husband almost thirty years ago. Her faith in God, and in her church, was as absolute as any I had met. She had a life time of memories which she no longer remembered fully, but it was all there. When the young die, you are left wondering what they would have been, what they would have made of their lives. You wonder who they would have loved, who would have loved them, and what difference they would have made to those yet to meet them, and the world at large. A light is gone before it had a chance to catch spark, and see how bright it could burn. Great-Grandma Helen knew how bright her life had burned. Her fire had blazed and was banked to keep her warm to the end. So, if I must choose, I’ll take this kind of grief over the other. Having had both multiple times, I know which seems to leave the deepest scar.

No one wanted to get out of bed today. The thought of sleeping was almost too tempting. Trinity is home from school with a cough that has worsened since the funeral yesterday. Too much out in the cold perhaps. Everyone from Jon’s parents to the three of us just wanted to snuggle down and not get up. But get up we did. Well except for Grandpa, it was his mother who passed away, and none of us begrudge him using his grieving days with getting a little more sleep. He probably needs it more than the rest of us.

My throat is raw, and I’ve upped my vitamin ‘C’ to lab rat dosages in an attempt to stave off whatever bug is trying to get me. No pages yesterday, but for once I’ve decided to give myself a break. Funerals make for bad creative workdays, unless the funeral is your business. How do undertakers deal with funerals of loved ones? Are they better able to deal, or does it not matter if its your loved one going in the ground? I’ll bet it doesn’t matter, because I know from friends who are police that when they lose a friend or family member to crime the grief is just as real and raw. The difference is that they both know the realities of the crime, which can be good or bad, and have a sense that they might be able to do something to catch the person responsible. Grief is the same, but they have ways to deal with it that we civilians do not. I would think it would be the same for those in the funerary industry.

There are other words swirling around in my head. I tried to do a blog about them, and the images from yesterday, but I realized I’m not ready. Not yet. Maybe I’ll get all that imagery out in a blog, or maybe I’m being told that it needs to sink down into my subconscious and become seed for something less real life and more imaginary. Maybe. I’ve learned to trust my instincts and that still, small voice that says, “Wait, its not ready. Let it lie fallow. Wait until spring.” Not real spring as in a calender date, but that moment when the seed of the idea begins to grow and I know what it is, and what it’s meant to be, and I follow that green shoot up into the sun where it can grow and become something bigger. But for today I have a book deadline and that waits for nothing and no one, not even grief.