Connections II

I went to Rose's dad's funeral today. He'd gotten sick about a month ago, and last week, after 94 years of life, he died in his sleep. I cried though his funeral - even when they are at the end of a long and good life, goodbyes are still hard. I cried for Rose. I cried again for Maria; my wordless grief over her too-soon departure is still near the surface.

My mind keeps circling back to connections.

I'm developing a vivid mental picture of a multi-dimensional web, surrounding, sustaining us, lifting us up, holding us when we'd otherwise fall. I sensed it surrounding us all last month, I saw it cocooning Rose today.

The strands are formed by love; frayed by distance and dysfunction. They connect us one to the other - to the people part of our lives today, to those who we have lost track of but still hold a place for within our hearts, to those who have traveled the path of death before us. When we die, the sections of the web connecting us to those who have died before us tingle, and the people at those connection points stop and turn back to pull on the strings to help us along the way.

I think this is why I've always found the saddest lives to be those where the web is sparse; the connections few. Their road to the afterlife is the hardest because they travel alone with no one ahead to encourage them and pull them across the tough and scary parts of the path.

Can you picture it?

Your eyes close for the last time, your soul prepares to depart from your body. With the eyes of love, you look ahead through the darkness to see a web, its strands made of light. At the end of each line is someone you love. As you begin to walk, the web closes in around you, showing you the way onward. Behind you, the lines flow to those who are sending you on your way with love; those for whom you will be one of the guiding lights when their turn comes, as it will.

Connections.
I'm going to have to keep thinking on this.