Friday, December 2, 2011

May 2011 Photos Part 1-- Clint's Birthday

So, writing about our year got a lot more difficult once I got to telling about May, partly because of pregnancy and a busy summer, but also because it was just hard to write about May.  Clint was born in May.

May was our month.  The best month.  A perfect month to be born.  The end of so much, and the beginning of so much more.  Him at the beginning, me at the end.  With the whole glorious summer before us.  Ever since the May when I ran at high speed from the bus, eager to see my baby brother after school... through the ones when he in turn ran the same driveway, eager to greet his sister and her husband, then later his nieces and nephew as well... on to the May in which he graduated mid-month, tall and strong, manly, after his 18th birthday.  I gave birth to a daughter on my birthday the same year.  The one I have no photo of him holding.  He was a mile a minute after that May.  There was so much to do and so little time.  No one knew how little time.  The last time I remember talking to him in May was at a church building.  2010.  We talked about Atlas Shrugged.  We didn't know it would be one of our last conversations.  He was dead less than 2 months later.

This year marked the first time in 20 years that the first part of May hasn't included Clint celebrating a birthday.  This May, instead of wishing him a happy birthday, we went to visit his grave. 



The cemetery was comparatively cheerful in May to what it was in the bitter cold of January, at the occasion of my great-aunt's burial, which had been the last time we'd visited.  The weather was nice, too, after such a long winter, and a Spring that seemed indecisive about whether to stay, as if it knew cold gray cloudiness better suited the mood.  And it did.  I've never been one not to welcome Spring, but this time, the sunshine just seemed out of harmony somehow. 


But we walked this graveyard.  How many times have I done similarly there, since childhood?  How many trips up that hill?  I don't know.  I know if I live long enough there will probably be more.  But it's far different now than it was in childhood.  The reality of death is so much nearer, and I know it will likely only be more and more that way as time passes.



I'm sure glad this world is not my home.  There are so many endings... but it's just the beginning of so much more.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.  For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland....   they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them" (Hebrews 11:13, 14, 16b)

1 comment:

  1. Oh, I can see how May would have been especially difficult for you! I, too, am glad this world is not our home--it is a tough place!!

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