summer is ending and fall is coming

fall is coming and with that...the first anniversary of Sarah's death on 9-27-07.

It is like a sunset---seems like it takes the sun forever to get to the horizon and then in the last 1/2 hour---it goes so fast that you want to slow it down to watch the splendor of it. Then once down...the glorious afterglow of the sun just melts you away.

losing someone is like that---you see it ending and want to slow it down...move the sun back up into the sky...but you can't. and then the sun slips away. at this point you could walk away and miss the glorious afterglow of the sun...many people do--they leave the beach before seeing the show of the colors as the sun has gone away...

i am in the season of seeing the afterglow of Sarah and her impact on life itself as well as those she touched. many are still having a very hard time with her gone...even having trouble with how to move on---and how can anyone close to her move on....but life is like that...

i don't always get it...and if i am not careful...i can not understand how others do it in their own situation. i have learned a big lesson in this experience...life isn't what you think for others. how much do i really know about what it is like to walk in their shoes...their pain, their daily life. NOTHING. help me to be so careful to not judge, not criticize, not condemn, not try to figure out how someone should do it for them....

grief has colored life in a new way for me. seems like i see in a broader way than ever before. i have patience and grace for others....

i also understand how terribly over life is when someone dies abruptly and that they are no longer there---not for just that day...but for all the rest of the days on this earth...forever. it is a big word...forever. i have learned to look to heaven for a great hope like never before either....and am thankful for that. it is more than i could imagine..and keeps me wanting to live more fully because it is there--heaven is to follow this life and how full do I want to live here till i go there? i want it all fully here--to embrace what is before me, i want all the ones who also loved Sarah to have life in fullness here too--to live well. She and I believed that with all our hearts...and she wanted that for all of us...we talked about death alot....even planned our funerals on my birthday last summer with her and Marty and Kim when at Brios for dinner. what a girl. she probably has more to do with all that is happening to bring full life to me and others...don't get it, don't understand it...but feel deep in my heart that it is true.

help others God to heal. Help them to see the good in life and moving on...to trust. to see more clearly what is the goodness of living in great loss. i guess if you haven't lost greatly and abruptly---you can't know. it just changes everything...and you either live...or you don't.