Not a very chirpy post

I went to the funeral for a dear friend's mother yesterday. It's the third funeral for a friend's Mom I've been to this year. Another friend recently sent me a lovely essay by Suzanne LaFetra whose subject was on the surface about Dia de los Muertos but really was about how life is a continual letting go. Of relationships, jobs, loved ones, kids, our own selves as we change and grow.

Somehow though, the meaning of letting go deepens when you're this age. I haven't been to a single funeral I don't believe of a friend's parent before. Now, 3 in 10 months. It represents a new level of letting go. We begin losing parents which, although we dread it, we do expect. Once parents get into their 70s and begin slowing down, a tiny, growing heaviness slowly begins settling on your heart as you watch them, talk to them, spend time with them. Mortality, for them and for us, moves an inch closer.

Although I haven't yet been to a funeral for a friend, I'm beginning to see the inevitability of it appearing on the horizon. Ugh, letting go. I wonder if it gets easier to accept as it happens more often? Probably not although perhaps it gets easier to accept your own mortality. As you lose people precious to you, at some point, you must just begin dreading being without so many people who used to be close to you. Maybe you become resigned, even ready, to follow.

Not a very chirpy post today. But, life is very definitely NOT always chirpy. Without the poignancy of loss, would we feel the sharp joy of love? A moving quote I came across says, "Grief is the price we pay for love." I think the two must go hand in hand. It's not possible to have the one without the other.

Here we are, back at letting go.