Sometimes, suddenly and with no warning at all, something just ends. About two weeks ago I was out for my midday walk in the hot Florida sun and along came a man walking his dog. They walk by me all the time and I sniff a hello and go on my way. Everytime that man walks by he says the same thing ... "Oh look, Princess, she looks just like your friend". He then tells Meme that Princess has a Bichon friend a few streets over who looks just like me. And then they walk down the block until the next time.
It's always the same. But this one day a couple of weeks ago along they came again. I noticed Princess seemed a little different, sort of alone, ears flopping down, tail sort of dragging. And this time the man told us that Princess' friend had died. We both got so upset. It sort of stayed with us and all the way home Meme kept saying how sad she felt that the little dog had died. Yet we had never met that little dog; we knew about her and so we grieved for her.
And then last night Meme got an email from a friend. The email said that someone they knew on an internet message board had suddenly passed away the night before. Meme felt so terribly sad even though this was a person she had never met, yet still a person so full of life in the way she wrote about everything. Meme felt she knew her even though she'd never seen her face. And there were so many others who felt the same way even though most of them had just talked with her on this strange thing called the internet.
The world has changed a lot in Meme's lifetime. Time was when each person's world was just family, the people who lived in the town and a few aunts and uncles who would visit now and then. Now people can have an impact on others throughout the world because of the internet which is broken down into a whole lot of little communities where people who have similar interests can come together and share their experiences.
Eventually, for everyone, life on earth ends and sometimes with no warning, like a whisper in the night. When it comes so quickly and so often way too soon, the shock of it is really painful and what is seemingly a quiet night whisper becomes a painful roar in our heads and it will not go away.
So many lives are touched by the loss of just one person ... the lives of those who knew her well and loved her so much and also the lives of those who didn't know her that well at all. These friends who hardly knew her suddenly realize they'll never get to meet that person they hoped to meet one day. And those who knew her well realize they'll never get to touch, to hug, to hear her voice on the phone. We see words on a page just written the night before making her so alive, like any moment she'll drop back in and write some more.
But she won't. And just because some of us never met her, just like I never met the little dog down the street, we still grieve for her and we will miss her.
For Rita ... Blue Skies always.
'Til Next Time
Molly
