fading...............

The images are fading – the sounds too – like trying to remember your favorite clip from your favorite movie after not seeing it for 30 years.

I can still recall the images of that day… Glenn on the bathroom floor, being placed in the ambulance, and then the nurse in the ER gently pumping the blue balloon so he could breathe, to keep the blood and oxygen flowing,  to keep him alive, sort of.  And then again at the next hospital – he’s only sleeping, right? Except for all the artificial breathing apparatus…

And then in the casket…that’s not the man I spent 40 years of my life with….. I don’t know who that is… and I turn away. I. can't. look.

Yes, the images and the sounds are still there … but fading… is this supposed to happen? I suppose.  I guess this is what they call time healing?

Maybe.

 But this is also Holy Week in our Christo/Luther tradition…. With all the requisite vocabulary of death and dying and resurrection and curtains torn in two – and darkness covering the land and breathing his last……………

I wasn’t there when he breathed his last - someone was – but not me. Maybe it was the 2 Mary’s and one other – I don’t know.

It’s probably just as well…I’m not sure how I would have handled it…

But it doesn’t matter now …

Fading Memories by Unkopierbar on Devian Art

The images and sounds are fading – as are many memories of our life together….

And I wonder did I dream all of this?  Will I wake up somewhere in another dimension?

So when the memories that I have are faded beyond recognition – what do I have left? Comforting new ones that haven’t been made yet?

And so I wonder…. As I guess we all do at this time of year. Resurrection?  Eternal Life?  What’s it all about, Alfie?

My dilemma is that I have no f**king clue.

Tomorrow is Easter – the high point of our Christian faith – all about Lambs, not bunnies… New Life & Promises & Hope & Resurrection & ……….what? At least today…now…this moment… even though the sun is shining and the tulips are poking their little green ears out of the cold earth…I’m not feeling the love. Or the hope – or the promise.

The images and the sounds are fading… the only hope that I do have is that they don’t fade completely – because it’s all I have  - but it is not enough.   Right now – today – there is nothing that is ‘enough’.
Amen