Life really does go on....

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."  --Robert Frost.

I will remember you as you once were - with bright and intelligent blue eyes framed by pretty golden hair.  I will remember you complaining about how the Blazers were or weren't performing and the latest stats on the Ducks.  I will remember you rolling your eyes at me at the funny quirks of our shared family and the camaraderie that we had - both having married similar men and being thrown together in family events with strange traditions. I will remember the day cruises on the boat with the name that I couldn't pronounce but that meant relaxation.  Mostly I will remember Thanksgiving and Christmas 2012 where you told me goodbye over a glass of wine, and I pretended not to understand you.  I will remember that soon you will be out of pain and home for good.  I will remember that from misunderstandings and rocky beginnings can come beauty and mutual respect. 

And, as I fold laundry, return library books, schedule dentist appointments, buy wedding gifts, and continue on with the many tasks that make up time on this earth,  I will remember that you have told me life does go on.  And that it will go on without you.  I will remember that I should not mourn a life lost too soon, but celebrate a spirit and a love that will remain in me and our family for as long as we all shall live.  And as I continue down my journey that has been blessed with many happy memories with you, I will remember that perhaps this is what it is all about.  Balancing all of these seemingly incongrous events that stacked next to each other don't seem to relate, but if looked at all piled up together and jumbled, they create a beautiful mosaic called life.  And I will shed a happy tear for your part in the mosaic that is my life.