Missing Folk

Maybe it’s the fact that the world is slowly opening back up. 

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s been a very long time. 

Maybe it’s the fact that it’s summer.

But now that the world has turned a bit on its axis, I realize how much I miss you all. 

It’s been two years since I’ve seen the family. Three since I’ve been to either California or Sweden. 

Life has been so busy trying to end my time as a congregational minister and get set up to work on line. 

But you guys? You’re an aching hole in my heart. I’ve seen you smile, but I can’t quite imagine what your hand feels like in mine. I don’t remember how it feels to rest on your shoulder. And the kids. In two or three years you’re not only inhabiting totally different bodies, you’ve learned worlds of different things, showing more and more signs of the people you’ll be.

And oh, you guys in my age group. If we haven’t had our knees done already, they’re creaking! We’re graying. 

This Sunday I’m burying a friend. She died last October. It will feel so good to meet and sorrow — together. I have two more memorials this summer. And how many weddings have been postponed, and we’re hoping they’ll happen this Summer and Fall?

As an extrovert, I think I managed pretty well through this pandemic. In fact, having had a bad head injury and a traumatic brain injury, it was probably good to me that there wasn’t a lot of running around, although, Sweet Lady, the zoom meetings. Everyone was good for a headache in the beginning. Although by the end of the first year I was healing a bit.

But now. Change is coming. We still don’t know what the new normal will be. But I know I want to hold you in my arms. 

I know, indeed, that I will. And in the meantime, I miss you. And that is so appropriate to where we are in this moment.

Peace, my friends, Peace and Love.

Ann