Sunday Column #3
I never cried for my parents…
…when they died…
…we were family…
…but not friends.
Does the teardrop know why we cry.
I cried today…
…for someone I never met…
…or knew…
…I wiped my tears with a McDonald’s napkin…
…while driving south on an interstate…
…cried for someone I never knew.
Does the teardrop know why we cry.
Maybe I cried for him, maybe I cried for them, or maybe the teardrops just knew that today…
…they…
…and I…
…needed to cry.
Today, the teardrops, cried…
…too.
Of today I will not mention names or places to respect privacy, but know this, I drove an hour or so north to attend a celebration of a life who left way too early in life.
A grown child, not that age matters when it comes to loss, but a child loved by his parents and a park pavilion full of others who loved him.
I had never met him but of what I saw, what I heard, the tales, the smiles, the tears his was an extraordinary life cut short.
All of us handle loss differently, I believe it is one of the tenants of being human.
Sorrow is the flip side of happiness, the dues you pay to love and be loved.
Love is when you talk of someone who passed and yet you still smile because they were here.
On this day in this park all friends were treated as family.
A young girl sang a beautiful song…beautifully with feeling well above her age level.
Friends young and old told of his love of off-road biking, I was shown a photo of a bench in the woods with his name on it, told it was one of his favorite spots to bike.
Does the teardrop know why we cry.
I learned of loss today.
I cried for loss that has not yet come but whom one day will.
I’m 73, my wife of 51 years, is 74…
…time is not on our side…
…I have told her I will pass the day after she does…
…right or wrong…
…my teardrops I believe will understand.
Love comes with a price, a price paid for with tears and grief.
This day in this park was all about love…
…all about stories…
…all about laughs and legends.
The man, the son, the buddy is physically gone.
The man, the son, the buddy lives now in the hearts and minds of all those who came today.
I did not know the man, the son, the buddy but of today I heard of his story,
…learned of his prowess on a bike…
…learned of his creativeness…
…and saw many of those who he touched.
And I was one of those, touched, by someone I never knew…
…touched by the stories told about him…
…touched by the smiles and tears of those who knew and loved him.
I never cried for my parents…
…when they died…
…we were family…
…but not friends.
Today though…
…I believe…
…that some of my tears…
…where for a man I never knew…
…and for two people I did know…
…Mom…
…and…
…Dad…
…maybe, finally…
…it was just time…
…and yes, I do believe…
…that the teardrop does…
…know…
…why we cry.
They showed me that today.
“To live in hearts, we leave behind is not to die.”
Thomas Campbell
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(567 words, 16 mins to write)