We are Always Just Beginning

ABSENCE AND PRESENCE.

We see them as being different. Absence cannot be presence, so therefore presence cannot be absence. It’s immutable fact.

Not exactly.

You can be there and also not there. Present while absent. I know this to be true because I’ve seen it. In fact I saw it recently, on a sun-drenched hill overlooking a serene Ozark lake.

My wife’s aunt Scottie died so long ago I can’t remember. But I also can’t forget her, no more than I can forget the color of the sky.

Her story continued over the years, told and retold as if scripture. People who never met Scottie would swear they knew Scottie, could hear her infectious laugh and see her gleaming smile. She was so much bigger than life that life could no longer contain her.

So when I saw that smile attached to her granddaughter’s bridal bouquet, it made all the sense in the world.

Scottie, like the bride’s maternal grandfather whose gentle face also adorned that special bouquet, was a beloved link in the family circle. But circles don’t break when someone dies, they expand. Her presence just grew bigger, that’s all. Her embrace widened to hold a fresh set of family members now joined by marriage, her stories soon to become their stories too.

Circles expand.

They encompass new lives and create new experiences. They remind us that no matter how far we’ve come, we are never at the end.

We are always just beginning.