The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We give our hearts away. . .

William Wordsworth 
(1770-1850)

Photo by Barry Troutman

The world labors and labors, spins its replications over and over, faster than I can follow. The starving child, the exploded bomb, the woman beaten and raped, the innocent held guilty, the treaties broken, the powerful taking more. It goes on, the whirling, goes on and on.


I sit in the midst of it, a small center, a warm glow, a breath. A breath doesn't stop the world. Nor does the end of breath. Outside my window the ancient cedar, the singing frog. I go on. We go on together, the world and I, and I find how to love it, how to bless its lack and richness, how to speak of it, to feel my bones, reclaim my heart.

Last night I went to hear a favorite local band. They started the night by saying it was a farewell performance, celebrating one of their members who is moving out of state. They've been through this before, losing a beloved musician to the vagaries of life, so they also used the evening to honor their founding members. I watched their faces, so full of joy and sparkle as they played, yet at moments I saw sadness, too, as they let the music speak.

I was primed to think about partings, because in a couple of days it will be 35 years since I saw my father for the last time. We'd gone to visit my grandmother at a nursing home and then went to a restaurant for dinner, just the two of us. We headed home in opposite directions, and I caught a glimpse of him as he descended the entrance ramp onto the interstate: his flashy gold Mercury Cougar and his beloved profile. I didn't know it was the last time I'd see him; he died that night in his sleep.

This is my favorite photo of my dad. He was 23 and on his honeymoon, crazy in love and full of cocky youth. As he stood there challenging that warning sign, he didn't know what his message would mean to me so many years later--his invitation to stand fully in my life, not to shy away from the dangers it poses for the heart.

I've always loved the word bittersweet. So much of the English language is inexact and convoluted. But this word is direct and clear, naming that sharp fullness at the top of the throat, those tears just under the surface. I've had many losses since my dad, some through death, others through the complications of life. Sometimes I've known it was the last time; sometimes life has hit me over the head. What I've learned as I've integrated loss is that the bitter half of that word loses its force, replaced gradually and lovingly by the sweet. It has to do with gratitude, with what I keep.