Carved Box
Nothing quite like staring at the ashes of your friend to bring you up close and personal with your own mortality. She is sitting nicely contained in a beautiful, carved wooden box with her favorite Psalm etched on the front.
Looking at what little remains of my friend, it is hard not to think about my own life. I start pondering these impossible yet important questions.
Have I been a good mom? Am I making a worthy contribution to the world? Am I living a thankful life? And on and on... Our questions might be slightly different, yet the essence is the same; have I done enough? Have I been enough?
After her celebration of life, I am tempted to compare myself to her; fun, adventurous, welcoming, always busy, always doing, always going somewhere. A smile and encouragement for each one she met and for many she never met but called out to as they walked down her street. Constantly traveling to sporting events with her children. Often helping others.
What a dangerous game it is to compare.
We are each given our own lives, our own adventures, our own strengths and our own struggles. Our own path to journey on.
What I will keep with me in her memory is a call to get out and enjoy life - on a daily basis; To gather friends and even strangers when possible because we all could use companionship and encouragement; To wake up every morning and say, as she often did, “what can I do for fun today?” To remember that “God is good all the time, and all the time God is good.”
These last eighteen months together have been an important part of my own journey. To walk alongside my friend as she battled cancer, lived abundantly and died well has been a gift. It is not the kind of gift I would ever ask for. Yet it brought with it many moments of unconditional love, patience, presence, compassion, laughter, honesty, acceptance, tears (of both joy and sadness), and human connection.
On deeper reflection, I realize these are the true moments of doing enough and being enough.
Though tinged with sadness, I am filled with peace and a new sense of grounding and gratitude.
I run my hand gently over the edges of the carved box and whisper her usual parting salutation… “I love you, babe.”
