A New Bloom

https://youtu.be/lVpt7q4xrn4It’s been a helluva year.I get it. People die every day. I saw someone post a comment to that effect on social media after the announcement of Ms. Carrie Fisher’s death earlier this week and thought one of two things:

• Here’s someone who hasn’t experienced the Leaving of someone who mattered to them.
• Here’s one cold individual.

There’s no reason not to remember or not to recognize someone, a person close to us or a person who has spent a great deal of time in the public eye (in our lives by proxy) just because people die every day.I have my own way of remembering.I often write about those who were a part of my life but who I wasn’t as close to as I think I should have been.My dad.My friend, Don.I try to make amends for being stubborn, for not trying harder to build a connection. Before you call the men with the fancy white jacket with buckles, I am well aware that I can’t make amends or build a connection with someone who is on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge. However, I believe that we are spirit-connected and our feelings flow freely from space to space. I believe my friends and family members can feel that connection through time and space so I keep at it.I keep remembering.I have a different way of remembering others, like my Christopher. Today would have been our wedding anniversary. I think back to when we first met, to some of the crazy shenanigans we got into (the night of the fire, the watermelon bag, the stolen bike …), to the changes that happened, to his Leaving. I don’t write about those things or our experience in the same way because we were close.As my Pop-Pop used to say, ‘give me my flowers before I’m gone.’ We did our best to say the things that needed to be said while we were both on the same side of the Rainbow Bridge.Life has moved down the Path and keep taking steps.Steps away from the places of Leaving, carrying small packages of memories that expand into a kaleidoscope of Pasts when opened.Steps further along the Path toward … what?The future I know not but expect to be as wonderful and miracle filled as ever.My journey along the Path is unlike any other. There may be similarities but there are no others exactly like mine. If we sat down and I shared the whole story, I suspect there would be those of you who might scowl, cry, or judge. That’s your business. All I can say is that I’ve walked this Path the way I’ve been led.And that’s the best I can do.That’s the best any of us can do.