And Pray

"I guess we're all one phone call
From our knees"

- "Closer to Love" Lyrics, Mat Kearney

My Uncle David passed away peacefully yesterday after a battle with cancer. To hear about peace: a blessing. The long struggle before: painful for him and for his family.  Wrestling with this: my father and his older brother, Greg, the last Clavadetschers of their generation. To that end, an email exchange with my cousin, Christian, to pin family members to a place-time where-when we can celebrate our ongoing co-existence.

An email two days ago from college teammates. One of the kindest, most modest of swimmers, a woman only two years older, lost her battle with cancer over the weekend. She leaves a husband and two boys.Her heart made a huge difference on the lives of everyone she touched. She was a doctor, she touched many.

In Sunday School, corralling my co-leaders to pour out my doubts. We're not doing enough. What world are we leaving to our children? What kind of society, what laws, what light?  They responded, "the children are the light."

I said, "they light the way for us, but who lights the way for them?"

A time of struggle for me. I feel too acutely the weight of that ghost call, the potential for my heart to hurt.  Now is a thin place. I feel how insubstantial the curtain between alive and not-alive. Time slips through my fingers.

To my therapist, I confess: "I need to pray, to meditate. When I wandered, lost, before, that helped."  Thinking to myself, surely she has more concrete tasks for me, a better solution.

Her response, "Yes, that is all we can do," is what I know to be true, but not comforting. I want to do more, solve more, control more.

And I cannot do anything but appreciate the now, be grateful that my children are safe at this moment, that my cat sits on my desk, that snow melts and sun shines and yellow flowers bloom on my table. And pray.