I sat down at my desk this morning and noticed the beautiful Mother’s Day card pictured here, made many moons ago by the hands of a very young Peyton, and realized, now that I’m in the thick of it all, that I was wholly unprepared for this week of anniversaries.
Monday, March 14th, marked two years since we lost my beautiful Aunt Pearl.
We had just landed in our quarantine spot, all in a jumble and at the very beginning of we knew not what, when I received word from my cousins in Holland (home for that little branch of our family tree) first, that Pearl was gravely ill, and then, that she was gone. We, her scattered family, celebrated Pearl just a few days after she passed thanks to a beautiful streamed ceremony planned by my two cousins, Pearl’s daughters Mandy and Maja. It was the first important event of so many we would eventually experience by way of a computer screen, and we all hoped with our broken hearts from our spread out places for the day we could gather, remember, and hold each other close and in person.
Because this life has a way of weaving together people and their stories into spectacular, complicated, one-of-a-kind webs, Monday, March 14th also marked a very different and very joyful anniversary: 21 years since the day Amelia—a soul so like Pearl in so many ways now that I stop to think about it—came bursting into our lives. It was a very happy day for our girl, complete with some of the very finest gifts a girl could get: friends, birthday cake, and a cloudless blue sky. I won’t forget the picture of Amelia on her big birthday as she spoke to Stephen and me from the tiny screen of my phone, smiling, sunbeams all around, making sure we knew how happy she felt and how grateful she was, for us and for all the birthday had brought.
And today. Today marks one year since our little island community lost three beautiful young people, tragically, unexpectedly, creating a shockwave of heartbreak felt in some way, I imagine, by nearly all who call Bainbridge home. The heaviness of today's anniversary set in suddenly just yesterday afternoon, even though I’d known it was coming for a while, as the pain that had long been percolating in the hearts of those who felt the stab of excruciating loss most acutely began to bubble up to the surface again, finding its way into conversations here and there as I went about my ordinary, daily business.
Today I woke with the clearest notion, like a vivid dream remembered: that Sadness and Gratitude are perfect partners—two soul-sisters walking side by side. Sadness is the quiet one, and Gratitude is the voice who knows exactly how and when to break the silence. How tenderly Gratitude wipes a tear, then takes up the trembling hand of Sadness; how easily Gratitude shares a happy memory, then notices out loud the new spring flowers all along the path.
In a few weeks I’ll board a plane for Holland, where Mandy and Maja are putting the finishing touches on a very special family reunion, centered on the long overdue celebration of their Mom, our Pearl. I know the gathering of us will be uniquely joyful, as we come together to honor space for Sadness, but also to make plenty of room for Gratitude to come bursting in, filling us all to overflowing.❤️
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