"Parts of Parts"

To know me at all; there are things to tell of that few people have seen.  If they were to somehow see into what underwrites my demeanor, they might catch a glimpse of the tears I often dissuade. When I remember simple acts of relevant kindness my eyes show their palest watery blue. In the hidden distance of a stoic gaze I often touch my face to stop the coming flood like a parent comforts a child. This sobering caress brings my presence into the honor of her memory.

A few years ago I had a dear friend with terminal cancer. As her body was slipping away, she clung to the things she could still feel. Things like Ice on her fingertips and strawberries thinly sliced and placed on her tongue became her chosen indulgences. Her mother would stand over her holding a Dixie cup full of ice chips so Katherine could dangle her fingertips in the cold water. While friends and family martyred themselves in dramatic fashion, her mother held back her own grief until she was no longer needed. She was the center of solace amid the impossible pain of her daughter's finality. In the last week of my friend's life I sat beside her bed holding her hand. She could not speak. Slowly, in a plain voice, I began describing the painting that hung above her bed. As she squeezed my hand, I realized I had always wanted to hold hers. I wished I had told her before she got sick.

I see the bright spots of humanity move unknowingly with purpose in daily living. They dance at funerals and laugh during the eulogy, thus lifting sorrow. They make silly faces to the delight of frowning children. They sing to crying babies and joy in their calming. I have even seen strangers fall in love amidst the aftermath of car wrecks and other tragedies. Surprised by circumstance we glean something far greater than cause and condition. Our actions imply what even we don't understand. Each part we play has a corresponding counterpart.

As the sun climbs the wall of the world at dawn, its light wakes a living jigsaw puzzle. We fit together in each others lives perfectly mysterious until the puzzle is complete. In a hundred years or less, all of us here now will be gone. Yet, this century we shared in unison. Never again will these same circumstances arise. We each will appear in the autobiographies' of those around us as heroes, villains, lovers, and friends. We race toward one another like ripples in a pond never fully understanding who we touch or why. Moving toward us in ways we cannot foresee, our greatest teachers arrive in the moments of our greatest despair. We must promise to look and listen. To leave unsaid the truths of our stories, is like robbing the future of triumphs yet unwritten.