Yahrzeit

I haven't posted since forever, between the holidays and day to day life, times just whizzes by.

Yesterday was the 1o year anniversary of my hubby's death.  A decade.  Decade sounds more significant, at least in my head.

I spent the day in my relatively normal fashion, whatever that means.  Had my haircut.  Dodging the flooding rains we've been having.  Went to grocery.  Cooked.  You know normal.

The evening brings a different picture.  When the sun goes down, the candlelight becomes more evident.  I sit and read the prayers.  I say Kaddish, like I do every year.  I read from the Gates of Prayer, if only to remind myself that it is in living that we best serve and honor those who have left us.  It is what we are called to do, to remember; being grateful for the memories and to live, as though they were still among us.  We consider all these that we have been blessed with and we are filled with gratitude.  That is the intent.  It fills me with peace.  I close my book and sit a moment and smile.  I feel rested.

Sometime last fall, the approaching decade mark hit my radar.  I felt it was the beginning of a turning point for me, and has continued to evolve that way.  When I went home for Easter and sat in the new sanctuary for the Good Friday evening Taize service, I realized they had reversed the interior.  What used to be the back was now the altar and vice versa.  I sat there, again in the candlelight, and looked behind me, remembering all that had transpired "back there" but that I was now facing a different direction.  I was very aware of this change and the change within myself as well.  When I was leaving, I told Fr. I had come, "just for this."  Just for that moment.  

Yesterday morning in my quiet time, I prayed my same opening, thankful for a day unlike any other.  Each day, while seeming the same to us, routine and for some boring, is a day unlike any other.  When you can look through your day that way, a decade becomes a blink. Like taking a breath.