One of the reasons that my blogging has slowed down is that there have been so many things over the course of my recent life that I lack the ready words to process the experience.  The time I spend reaching, searching through the combinations of my vocabulary, have produced nothing adequate to express the workings of my mind or my heart.  And once laboriously laid in ink or pixel, they have no consequence.  They change nothing, do nothing.   They lay inert and lifeless and inconsequential in the face of the enormity of life.

Last evening I lost a friend.  The second friend lost unexpectedly in the last few months.  The latter was a friend of my past, and the hole he left in my personal history I have struggled to fill.  But this loss, of a recent friend, a young woman still fresh into the prime of her life, was a loss of my future.  And it was in her loss that I realized that grief, the moment of grief, the feeling of grief has no words.  Grief has only the words we wished we had said.  These words we have lost and can never be given, like gifts to the recipient.  These words we must keep forever bottled in our hearts, because we can only whisper, like secret wishes, to their absence.

I wished I had told you how much you inspired me.

I wished I had told you how I admired your love of life and your decency, your skill.

I wish I had told you how bright the moments were in your presence, how many times your words had given me hope and resolve and comfort.

I wish I had told you what a beautiful laugh you have.

I have already done those things that are customary in loss.  Last night I lay in the dark with my son, talking quietly about the little things that make up his day, those little, innocent musings that I never want to ever forget, imprinting the smell of his hair and the soft brown of his eyes on my memory.   How long I will have these moments is unpredictable.  I do not want them wasted.

I spent a lot of time with the light out in the quiet of the dark thinking of the years I have spent with my husband, what we have shared, the tears and the joy.  The all-encompassing warmth of his presence that I have shared for so very long.

I sent a silent prayer for my mother, still lying sedated in Critical Care, many miles away, that she may have more years with her grandchildren; more years to fix her in their memory.

In times like these we unconsciously cross ourselves and prepare for those days when those closest to us pass beyond our reach.  But what of the people who pass through on the periphery of our lives?  The people whose time with us is ephemeral, but who, nevertheless, brought smiles and warmth and inspiration to us?

People to whom, by social conventions or emotional restraint, or just plain shyness, we have never said:

You touched me.

You gave me hope.

You are beautiful.

Until the time to say them has gone, and to utter them seems so inadequate, so meaningless.  We can only resolve that we will not let neglect take us again; that we will not let people pass through our lives without acknowledging that they have changed us for the better.  That their lives held meaning to us.  That they are cherished for those moments they lightened our day or our load, however brief they were.

Bye Kitty.  There are so many things I wish I had said to you.