From The Restory - Conversations On The Journey (186)

 

Deidré 

We don't have a recording this week. Our words are few.

Our daughter-in-law Deidré passed away unexpectedly last Friday. She leaves behind her husband Leon and 7-year-old daughter Ariana. Yesterday was the funeral service.

Our efforts to adjust to her death have also begun. Emily Dickinson wrote about this process as follows:

It doesn't happen every day, but in this case we don't completely agree with Emily. 

We're not going to pack up our love. 

Or is Emily saying more? That we and she are right? 

After Deidré's death, we experience that our love for her is still an active force in our lives. 

However, Emily describes another truth that we have also experienced. After such a sudden death, you tread water. You move in a haze and do things semi-automatically. You tidy up the house. Put things away. The instinctive work of those who mourn. 

This is the difference between the long, lasting landscape of love and the sharp, devastating earthquake of grief. Our initial reaction, "We're not going to pack up the love," looks at the landscape. Emily describes the earthquake. 

Death and love have many sides. And they go together.

George & Matilda