On heartache and happiness
At my apartment, I'm without internet or television. I've been spending my time reading, and have managed to devour a small library since I've been here.
I also spend a lot of my time on the phone, chatting with my friends and family. Yesterday Leise called me and read me entries from Chara's blog and Laura's blog. Virtually anyone reading this has also read the blogs my many cousins keep -- in fact, most of the people reading this are the authors of the pieces themselves.
It's a bit odd to me, that we're all experiencing the same bundle of emotions right now. We are, in essence, grieving together across the country, an unsettling paradox of closeness and separation.
Chara spoke of the identity she gained as a granddaughter of Jack and Bernice Dodgen. I think all of us identify ourselves by the groups to which we belong. I'm an American, an Okie, a Longhorn. Those associations mean little when compared to pride, comfort and security I have from being a part of this family. I belong to this famliy. I belong with this family. I belong.
I don't know how we'll change -- how we'll become different as individuals and as a group. What I do know, though, is that these are my people, and I belong with them. We're not always going to have Christmas together. There won't be gatherings at Granny and Papa's. Our lives are irrevocably altered and we've likely not seen the end of the ways they'll change.
Changes in the Time and Place threads of our lives, though, don't alter the fundamental nature of our relationship. We are a family, and no can take that away from us. We'll live with our grief, our sadness and sorrow, for the rest of our lives. No one can deny that. But we will live with it together and then we too will be gathered to our people.
Honoring those people and those beliefs which have brought us to this point in our lives will, I think, carry us forward to a good life. It's a goal I aspire to now more than ever. I will have a good life. We will have a good life.
Frederick Terna said the following of his experience in the Holocaust, but I think his words are equally true of the changes we face to our way of life.
"It is a like a crazy bass that is playing all the time. I have learned to play the fiddle above it so that there should be some harmony to my life. There isn't a second, however, that I'm not aware of it."
There will not be a day when we are unaware of the sorrow we carry. Our job is not to relieve ourselves of the burden of sorrow, but to learn to play in harmony with it.
Grace and peace.
I also spend a lot of my time on the phone, chatting with my friends and family. Yesterday Leise called me and read me entries from Chara's blog and Laura's blog. Virtually anyone reading this has also read the blogs my many cousins keep -- in fact, most of the people reading this are the authors of the pieces themselves.
It's a bit odd to me, that we're all experiencing the same bundle of emotions right now. We are, in essence, grieving together across the country, an unsettling paradox of closeness and separation.
Chara spoke of the identity she gained as a granddaughter of Jack and Bernice Dodgen. I think all of us identify ourselves by the groups to which we belong. I'm an American, an Okie, a Longhorn. Those associations mean little when compared to pride, comfort and security I have from being a part of this family. I belong to this famliy. I belong with this family. I belong.
I don't know how we'll change -- how we'll become different as individuals and as a group. What I do know, though, is that these are my people, and I belong with them. We're not always going to have Christmas together. There won't be gatherings at Granny and Papa's. Our lives are irrevocably altered and we've likely not seen the end of the ways they'll change.
Changes in the Time and Place threads of our lives, though, don't alter the fundamental nature of our relationship. We are a family, and no can take that away from us. We'll live with our grief, our sadness and sorrow, for the rest of our lives. No one can deny that. But we will live with it together and then we too will be gathered to our people.
Honoring those people and those beliefs which have brought us to this point in our lives will, I think, carry us forward to a good life. It's a goal I aspire to now more than ever. I will have a good life. We will have a good life.
Frederick Terna said the following of his experience in the Holocaust, but I think his words are equally true of the changes we face to our way of life.
"It is a like a crazy bass that is playing all the time. I have learned to play the fiddle above it so that there should be some harmony to my life. There isn't a second, however, that I'm not aware of it."
There will not be a day when we are unaware of the sorrow we carry. Our job is not to relieve ourselves of the burden of sorrow, but to learn to play in harmony with it.
Grace and peace.
posted by Audrey at 2:47 PM
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