We're all experiencing transitions, sometimes with much sadness. Some of you know my partner Director David: he left suddenly today to help transition his best friend into hospice. Many of us are in pain now, or experiencing others' across the country...
This week we'll share voices from the weekend's Community Empowerment March. They -- and we, our community coming together -- gave us hope for healing, that our country might transition to a brighter place.
A couple speakers said George Floyd died for a reason. Something about God having a plan...I dunno. He died for terrible, human reasons I think; I don't know about the divine.
Today is my grandma's "yahrzeit," the anniversary of her death, when she finally met her God. Or as Dad just corrected me, she met Him long ago; she just got to go home with Him this day.
As the Jewish saying goes, "May her memory be a blessing." This feels a kinder cousin to the things we tell each other about "dying for a reason." It holds regardless of the reason loved ones are now reduced to memories. We can still find blessing and create meaning in memories, even of lives taken for terrible reasons and too soon.
Gardenias were among Grandma's favorite flowers. There's now one at my front door. When David and I left for the airport, we inhaled the lone, wilting gardenia together for the last time.
Just a few hours later, I've now come home to find a new one bloomed.
For a while I've said, I don't know if I believe in God, but I do believe in Grandma.
(And in the Mississippi Delta's magic at making things grow.)
So here's an extra prayer tonight, for all the loved ones we miss, those still here, and all those struggling to breathe, in many ways. For peaceful transitions, for them and maybe even our communities and country.
Whether you believe in God or Grandma, now's a good time to seek the divine in humanity, and take good care of each other.
xo.
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