Building Faith

Everyday, we dodge the bullet. Each day is another miracle. Sometimes, our miracle has become so ordinary, we wonder at the insult of the world's sense of normal. And somehow, it is so hard to remember that just because we lose our friends or family members anyway, just because we and those we love may stumble under our personal demons and afflictions, and just because we feel our hearts breaking over those losses, that our broken hearts still have the capacity to fill with awe and love at the miracles we continue to be blessed with.

One of the major downsides of all this information accessibility faces us when we unearth obituaries that we would have otherwise known nothing about. In years past, someone disappearing from our lives from long ago would leave us to wonder. Maybe create imaginary adulthoods, alternate lives for our long lost friends. Now, once or twice a year, it occurs to you to try and find someone. And you don't get anything. And one day, there it is. And even though it's seven years after the fact, you read that she died at 29. And because you are just finding out, it is exactly like it just happened yesterday. And the immediacy of that grief and heartbreak is so foreign and so close. Maybe that is what it is like to actually unearth an artifact. An old fragment of pottery. Someone's hands formed this vessel, carried it, held it. Their lips touched it and received succor.

And when this happens, I never know what to say or how to feel. The truth is that when someone you love dies, no matter how young, how old, how accomplished, how haunted, how close or distant you have become over time, there is grief. And after the heart break, there remains an ache. With all the aches and pains and scars on our hearts, it is an astounding trick that our hearts continue to beat and fill with love and hope.