And then closer, there’s birdsong. A long winter finally breaking. Something remembered in the bones, something hopeful returning. And everybody in the elevator at the hospital feels this, too. We’re packed tightly together, but everyone is boisterous and chatty. Like we’re going on an adventure. The porter flirts with another worker, both of them speaking in accents the other can barely decipher. But it doesn’t matter. People are smiling and feeling pretty. Making eye contact and laughing. And the doors open again and a middle-aged couple walk in. The woman, who looks bulletproof, like she commands vast industries, is crying. The man beside her holds her hand. Biting his lip, he looks down. And the way she stood there, looking straight ahead while the tears ran down her face. So unashamed, so brave. The rest of us fell silent in the face of their suffering. Shuffling about we made a little more room for them, letting them penetrate through to the middle. And so we quietly encircled them, and knowing not what else to do, we stood with them and their grief as we descended through the hospital, and then watched as they stepped out into the day, their lives forever changed.

*************************************************

Heidi very sad.

Things not good.

All sky falling wet and grey, everything smell of cat.

Frostie the Snow Goat is gone.

Although Frostie did not live long, Frostie lived cute. Not how many breaths Frostie took, but how many times Frostie took breath away with cuteness! Now Heidi know she VERY, VERY cute, but Frostie took cute to different level. Frostie made wheelchair work for him! Most animal in wheelchair just look weak, like can’t defend meat or kill squirrel, but Frostie make you want to give him your meat! Very rare talent! When Frostie wear hoodie, not look like gimmick, look like real deal, like Frostie just want to stay warm!

Frostie was true fashion prodigy, Heidi think Frosty Lady Di of Snow Goats!

Frostie our candle in the wind.

When Frostie got rid of wheelchair, he showed us that he not need props to be cute. He have natural charisma and when Heidi see Frostie, cannot take eye off Frostie! Like when hunting, only instead of wanting to kill and eat red blood of Frostie, want to hug and cuddle Frostie! So cute!!!

Frostie was great inspiration to Heidi, always showing her new ways to maximize cuteness. Although Frostie only live two months, Frostie prove to be great leader, even Alpha. Heidi hurt so much right now, so very, very much, no meat steak or fetch can fill the emptiness Heidi feel inside.

Heidi need a minute.

Just want to say, Frostie good goat, very, very good goat!

LC!

Heidi Maynard-Murray

Recently, as I was cycling down the street on my way there, I passed a young woman walking down the sidewalk. There was a unique tenderness written into her face that had an almost holy aspect, and she seemed preoccupied, as if all of her emotions were living right there on the surface, and I immediately wanted to know what she was thinking. But as quickly as I glimpsed her, she was gone, receding into the city as I coasted by.

After stopping to do a little banking, I walked into Wellspring about 15 minutes later and saw this woman inside the building waiting for the elevator. I was startled by this coincidence and started up a conversation, one that saw me telling her that my allergies were driving me crazy. Waves of benevolence seemed to pour from her when I said this, and with a humbling compassion and sincerity, she reached out and touched my arm in sympathy. I immediately felt horrible, like some fraud whom she believed was bravely battling through cancer and all the small, secondary miseries that are so often attendant, when the truth was that I was probably the luckiest person in the building. I felt ashamed and grew mumbly, bidding her a goodbye as she stepped out of the elevator and walked into a room where a grief support group was meeting, and I realized then that what I had seen in her face earlier, was the remembering, the cherishing of love, something that still encircled her like light.

Dear Cousins,

I hoped to write you before, but mother’s dying almost stunned my spirit.

I have answered a few inquiries of love, but written little intuitively. She was scarcely the aunt you knew. The great mission of pain had been ratified—cultivated to tenderness by persistent sorrow, so that a larger mother died than she had she died before. There was no earthly parting. She slipped from our fingers like a flake gathered by the wind, and is now part of the drift called “the infinite.”

We don’t know where she is though so many tell us.

I believe we shall in some manner be cherished by our Maker—that the One who gave us this remarkable earth has the power to surprise that which He has caused. Beyond all that is silence…

Mother was very beautiful when she had died. Seraphs are solemn artists. The illumination that comes but once paused upon her features, and it seemed like hiding a picture to lay her in the grave; but the grass that received my father will suffice his guest, the one he asked at the alter to visit him all his life.

I cannot tell how Eternity seems. It sweeps around me like a sea…Thank you for remembering me. Remembrance—mighty word.

“Thou gavest it to me from the foundation of the world.”

                       Lovingly,
Emily