"It is the spring time of my loving...the second season I am to know"...Led Zepplin

Monday morning on the way to work and school, two drivers were killed in a head on collision, an eighteen year old girl and a young father of two. I didn't know the father but I've known Alexa since she was little, and I know her mom.
We are both mothers and artists. She teaches at the same high school her daughter attended.

We knew there would be a lot of young people when we went to the funeral home Thursday night. We hugged so many kids and moms just as we approached the door, walking through all the kids who were gathered. When we finally reached Susan standing next to her daughter all we could do was hug each other. Then we just looked into each others eyes and let the tears fall. Finally I asked her how she could stand there, that I had fully expected her to be curled up under a chair somewhere.
She just shook her head and said no, this is where I am now...and I know she is in a safer, happier place.

She stood there and received her daughters friends and her students...one after the other.
Then at the funeral she stood amidst every ones weeping faces...
and never shed a tear...

The six young poll bearers stood in the first row and cried openly and sometimes uncontrollably. Finding comfort in the arms of each other. Young girls and their moms shared tissues. And every adult present at some point had a young one in their embrace, each finding strength in the other.

The strong sweaty boys we know just from our sons' playing sports with them, who we've seen in the stands and congratulated after games, or have given big plates full of food to at a tail gate, or who have purchased Gatorade from us in the concession stand...were suddenly like toddlers weeping in our arms...inconsolable, and all you could do was hold them close as you press a hanky into their hand and tell them it's okay cry, cry, cry....

It was sad.

She was a senior, and would have graduated in May.
And it was the first day of Spring.

Father shared the story of Puccini who began to write an opera as he was dieing. How his friends told him to rest, to save his strength...and what if you don't get it done? He told them I will do what I can, and my friends will complete what I don't....Then father shared a drawing of Alex's and told a little about what she was about.
And how it was up to them to complete what she did not.

I think about myself at 18...I did not even believe in God yet...
She was baptised....


I think of the woman who shared this week about loosing their 5 month old baby...

I think of Lou who so wants to be reunited with Sue...

I think about what I would want to do if I knew I was going to die...about cleaning the garage and attic?!?
About organizing all the photos...
About being an artist...
About having made a difference...


Life
it comes and goes so quickly
Life
it is so unpredictable
Life
is so precious
Life
is eternal

Live well

It is the springtime
.....of my loving...
the second season I am to know
you are the sunlight in my growing...so little warmth I've felt before.
It isn't' hard to fell me glowing...I watched the fire that grew so low.

It is the summer of my smiles... flee from me Keepers of the Gloom.
Speak to me only with your eyes. It is to you I give this tune.
Ain't so hard to recognize...these things are clear to all from time to time.

Talk talk...I've felt the coldness of my winter
I never thought it would ever go. i cursed the gloom that set upon us...
But I know that I love you so

These are the seasons of emotion and like the winds they rise and fall
This is the wonder of devotion...I seek the torch we all must hold.
this is the mystery of the quotient...Upon us all a little rain must fall...
It's just a little rain...