Look at all the pretty words and how they pale

before the Great Law of Life

That all must die at last.

Grief is a humbling visitor. It drains us of vanity and painted faces, of eagerness and righteous ignorance. It leaves us naked, bereft of words and meaning. But for writers, grief compels the creation of new words. It’s the rain that soaks the ground and swells the seeds of Love and new meaning.

My beloved dog companion Raja passed away this weekend. She was diagnosed with lymphoma four months ago and made it to one week past her seventh birthday. The gates of Grief had opened wide for me when I found out about her illness, and wider still when we said good-bye to her under the deck in our backyard. I’ve been walking through them willingly.

For Grief only blesses if we let it take us to our knees. If we let the question Why? echo back to us through torrents of tears and quiet thanksgiving. If we bow to the Mystery of Life and to that which gives it breath and color.

I don’t have much else to say and will end this post with a quote by writer Marina Keegan (who was killed in a car crash at age 23):

“Do you wanna leave soon?

No, I want enough time to be in love with everything . . .

And I cry because everything is so beautiful and so short.”

With Love,

Tina