Some gifts keep giving. A number of years ago, Rod gave me a Kitchen-Aid Mixer for Christmas. Almost everytime I use it, if Rod is home, I make a point of thanking him. With each passing year, I appreciate it more. It’s not like I use it every day, sometimes not even weekly, but when I use, I am blessed.
The same is true of the kind notes I have received since my sister Jane died. I often save cards, put them away in my “box,” for the future. But something feels different about these cards. I simply am not ready yet to put them away. Perhaps some of that is because it will be months before our family can gather for a celebration of life and burial of her ashes.
I knew on a head level how challenging COVID-19 has been for people who have lost loved ones. Now I know it in a deeper, personal, heart way. The delay of closure is hard: the wait to see her home to her bodily resting place; to hug my niece, nephews and my surviving sister Carol; to have a meal together, raise a toast to Jane, tell stories and laugh and cry. So I have the cards in a pile near my rocker, for now. I have found comfort and solace and the sense that I am not alone as I have re-read them.
We never know what a word – spoken or written – can do. When they are expressions of empathy, support, friendship and love, they are Spirit-breathed gifts that leap off the page and into the soul. “Kind words are like honey – sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.” (Proverbs 16:24)
Thank you for your words ~ Anne
These meditations are provided as a ministry in this time of pandemic as a ministry of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ.
Wayfinding 