The blanket of love...

When my dear mentor friend Jackie (with the unique loud laugh) was in one hospital dying of cancer, I was in another hospital struggling to learn to walk again.  So I couldn't be there, nor could I even get to attend her funeral.  For years it left me with a terrible sadness I seldom shared with anyone.  I needed closure, but how?

Several years after Jackie passed away, I was talking with a minister friend about this.  She asked, "What are some of the things you and Jackie did when she was still alive?"

"Well, one thing, we laughed...a LOT.  You know, the kind of laughter where tears are streaming down your face and you nearly wet your pants?  We both had a wicked sense of humor.  And now and then we would drink a glass of wine and talk about the arts, love, horses, sorrow, being on the road, and the things we each still hoped to do someday.  When I came to town I would take her on long drives and she would pour out to me all the things about her cancer battle she couldn't tell her family because it upset them."

"The two of you were really close," said Lori.

"Yes, we were.  She was much older than I, but we had a very close bond.  I was close to her family too.  And they had horses."

Suddenly Lori had an idea.  "This is what I want you to do...and I realize it may seem crazy, but take a bottle of wine, two wine goblets, and go to her grave you have never been to yet.  Pour wine in a goblet for each of you.  Talk to her as if she is right there.  Pour your heart out."

"Are you serious?"

"I am very serious.  Then I want you to tell me what happens after you have done this, okay?"

"Which means I am going to have to do this, huh?"

"Yep, you got it!"

So, this is how I ended up at Jackie's grave pouring wine into two fancy goblets late one afternoon.  As 

I began talking to her, the floodgates opened, and all the grief being held back, came pouring out.  Afterwards, the sky suddenly opened up with a beautiful sunset. 

And you know what?  I felt better...a lot better.  I even felt as if Jackie were there.  Then it hit me, how much Jackie absolutely would have loved being served wine on her grave.  

So before I left, I poured the rest of the wine on her grave...to leave with the grief I had released.  That is the exact moment words she had written to me years earlier came flooding back:  "No matter what happens, know my love will always be your blanket of love, dear child of mine."

Love remains, dear ones.