It has been a very long time since I sat down to write in this blog.  So many things are different - and I am not really the same person that I was before...but isn't that the journey?  Everything is dynamic and none of it stays the same...no matter how we wish it would or how we try as hard as we can to control it all.

Tomorrow afternoon I am attending a funeral.  I have never met Kayla but I know her story.  I know it because I have watched disease in my own brother that trapped him in a body that wouldn't give him any respite.  I know it as I spent ten years with a son that I tried desperately to save only to lose him anyway.  Kayla was a joy to her family - so important and vibrant in her own way.  They took turns to see her.  Not just because they felt that it was the right thing to do, but because they wanted to be with her.  She loved books, she was a great Christian and she had such a wonderful sense of humor.  She took care of her family before she left - making sure that they had no doubts that it was time for her to go. 

I have learned a lot about letting go.  The overused cliche... If You Love Something Set It Free
If It Comes Back, It Was And Always Will Be Yours  is misleading but also altogether insightful.  Loving something or someone and 'letting it go' with the expectation that if it returns that it will always be yours is a hopeful fantasy for those that either need to test love or those that have given up on a love and feel that there is no other way.  I think that we confuse love as something that requires a symbiotic relationship- a relationship of mutual benefit or dependence.  I have found that love is personal.  I love not because someone is going to love me back or because I have an expectation of how he or she will behave if I love them - and it is freeing.  It allows me to love without the insecurities and baggage that we all carry with us.  It allows me to send a text saying 'I am thinking of you...' and to move on with my life.  If I get a response - I feel somehow affirmed that there is a connection.  If I get no response, I don't feel the need anymore to create a story why there is no response.  Loving someone with no expectations - no strings attached - being vulnerable and not at the affect of getting something in return - is really loving someone or something and setting it ...and yourself... free.

I think of those that I love so desperately and just am grateful that I have them in my life to love.  Some of them are close and some - our relationships are now somewhat distant and fragmented.  But I think that too is the journey...

I don't know Kayla.  I don't know Kayla's family.  Kayla's sister is a new friend.  I do know about loving and having to let go.  The love we feel is still personal for us.  There is often no one longer there to affirm or deny that love...but it remains.  I feel it everyday as the memory of kissing Patrick's soft cheek before his bedtime is still fresh on my lips...