Grief

When it comes to death I know two things.

One: that I am much smaller than I think I am
and
Two: that I am much larger that I think I am too.

To exist in smallness and largeness is a great gift. One that I take for granted every day.

To be protected by the walls of a house, or the arms of a loved one, or the safe space in your brain. To see flowers, and raindrops and butterfly wings and remember we are all here for only a short amount of time. What glory to know it is all so fleeting and how precious and winking we are here on this terra. So small. So easily broken.

And yet.

To feel someone with you who you know is no longer living, to feel love expand your heart even when it’s been broken more times than you can count, to cry when you first meet a baby just sent from heaven. This largeness, this universal spirit of connection makes us all so much bigger than a blip on a screen.

Once we have moved forward into the next part of this whole thing I wonder if we continue to be both large and small in our realness. If we finally understand that we are simply what we are. Big and small. Here and there. Gone and not-gone. Connected and not connected. Moving and also steady.

Even the north star, so steadfast in the sky each night; which has lead sailors and travelers and pilgrims alike for as long as we can remember; is a blinking, winking, growing and shrinking, constantly moving state of being.

Steadfast and changing, right above us all if we have the courage to look up and notice how similar we really are.