the crossing

When my grandmother died, a cloud of sadness rested on our house in Hinkletown. She had been ill for a long time with different types of cancer, so it wasn't a surprise. But the finality brought the lightness of our family to a halt temporarily. I was just a young girl, but I remember looking over at our neighbors across two garden plots and seeing them playing and laughing and having a grand old time. And I longed for the heaviness to pass. I wasn't personally grieving that much because my grandmother had been ill most of my life and never very approachable. But I just wanted the world to right itself. I wanted Mother singing and laughter threading through the day. I wanted normal.

Yesterday morning I got an email from a longtime library patron-friend with whom I play on-line Scrabble. I hadn't heard from her in a few days and thought she was on vacation. Instead, the email told me very simply and completely clothed in non-detail, that her daughter had passed away. She thanked me for setting her daughter on a path of a life-time love of books and thanked my husband for being one of her favorite professors. I was completely devastated. I don't know how she died, but I'm guessing it was self-directed in one way or the other. I may never know, but maybe she will want to talk at some point.

But every since those words, "my daughter passed away" her burden has become mine. I have lots of distractions, but every time there is a quiet moment and my mind sweeps the day to the side, her world of hurt comes sliding into my heart. I will keep writing and sending my words of love but I am on the fringes of this abyss. She is in the vortex and will never be able to escape the pull. She will get back to the music of the day at some point. But there is no more normal for her.