laughter and apple blossoms

Have been within the evil clutches of illness for an entire week now. What a lovely spring this is rapidly becoming. Shakespeare claimed that sorrow came not in spies, but in battalions... and I must agree with the Bard considering the tragedies that have rippled through my week.

I lost a friend. He was found on Sunday morning, cause of death not exactly clear, a medical enigma explained only partially by the fact that his uncle had died just as suddenly at the age of 44. Brian was only 28. I cannot do any justice to grief through words - those who have first-hand experience with death can perhaps relate. I must simply acknowledge that our lives are not our own, and that we exist merely as fragile property of the universe itself, come what may. But my heart aches in places I cannot even identify and I find myself in tears more frequently than not. Me, the Girl Who Doesn't Cry. Unfortunately this is no time for irony, just the sorrow of the world being robbed of yet another of its best men. His smile could stop a rainstorm. I am blessed to remember him with that glorious smile, lucky to have been within his world if only for so brief a time as 28 years will allow. 28. Just short of three decades yet a life rich with happiness and love and family. Brian, you were extraordinary. You've left a void in this world no one will ever fill.

If only the candles we light in memory of departed friends could signify our sorrow, could truly light the darkness of our saddened souls. If only that flickering light could travel and be seen by those we mourn. I think of the grief of Virginia tonight, holding its candlelight vigils to honor the tragedy of the Virginia Tech massacre. We are so unique a generation now to remember these events that shape our lives: each that passes seems to be the worst depth to which humanity can sink, and yet the continued chain of happenings only proves otherwise, from Columbine to 9/11 to this... What world is it that we will create based upon this knowledge of grief and horror? Where do we look to find our hope?

I am old enough to remember all of these things, from the day of the Oklahoma City bombing (the worst terrorist act on American soil) to wearing running shoes to calculus class after the Columbine shootings to waking up one day during my first month of college to discover the twin towers in flames and the world forever altered. The plague of cynicism is swallowing us whole. Loneliness and aggression seem to fuel the worst impulses in human nature, swallowing men like a forest fire does trees. I thank God for my friends - without loving relationships to keep me afloat in these dark times I would be lost myself, drowned in the dark ocean of men's evil.

I was speaking with just such a friend earlier this evening and we were sharing our reactions to the world in all its terrible beauty and cruelty alike. I diagnosed us both as having a case of the "Kurt Cobains," a sensitivity to life alluded to by his legendary suicide note. And yet I don't want to chose Kurt's answer to the problem. As tempting as suicide has been over the years - and believe me when I say it has remained an all-too-alluring offer that I have not always been able to refuse - I still yearn for the optimism of faith. The world is just beginning to blossom again with the fresh springtime promise of new life and sweet green growth. Just outside my window are a row of blooming crabapple trees, my favorites, and their delicate scent is intoxicating even to my stubborn sinuses. It would be easy to fall back on the cliche that children are our hope for the future, easy to look to the innocence of youth for an answer... but I don't believe that such an answer is that right path. It remains in our hands, this future we speak of... if little can be done than so be it but little we shall do if that is an option.

Tonight I leave my window open. I want the night air to soothe me and fill my lungs with its sweetness as I drift off to sleep. I want to let the world in and let the sorrow out. Let us all grieve together on this beautiful April evening, breathing in each other's pain and exhaling it gently to nature. No one is alone: we must seek out the lonely among us and wrap loving arms around them, reassuring both them and ourselves that unity has strength beyond anything else. We deserve no less, any of us. Let us remember... and honor those lost to us... by loving those who are left behind.

Because we miss you. Because we will always miss you.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W. H. Auden