Smiling like a hero while the earth spins ever onward

The last day of 2005. I’m writing from the cabin, up the Colorado River from the Gulf of Mexico. I like to spend my New Year’s Eve here where it’s quiet and I can be near the river and trees, surrounding myself with a nature that has not the least awareness of the changing calendar page. Her own revelry is much quieter, and much more magnificent. Peaceful.

I’ve been looking forward to getting 2005 in the past. But lately I've been so busy putting padding on the sharp corners that I forgot the inevitable. But it'll hit you, won't it? I realized this morning that as much as I want to be out of 2005, the part of me I haven't given a voice to lately is stricken with dread to leave the last year my father lived. The best of 2005 was his life; the worst, his death. Those are the superlatives of my year. For all the experiences in 2005, in my heart the year will always be reduced to those raw facts. And tonight I cannot escape that awareness.

At the moment, I am trying to hold on to this year. Silly, I know. And so unexpected. I've gotten caught in the trap of my well-intentioned orchestration. I've dialed friends and I've dialed family. All are as surprised as I am to hear my tears.

I thought you wanted to be alone.

I did, but I'm sitting here and waiting for him to walk through the door.

I can't help it. I've sat in this chair a thousand times and watched him walk through that door. A thousand times I didn't pay attention to the normal. I'd give the world for one more time.

What can I do?

Nothing. I just really miss him.

They struggle. We hang up. I wait for him to break onto the scene with a bag of oysters in his hand, walk to the counter and prepare his special sauce. I wait for him to smile at me and ask if I'd fix him a martini. I wait to hear, Love you, Cat.

In life, we experience brokenness, woundedness and weakness. I’ve had plenty this year. But I also take heart that life offers healing, and I’ve had that this year as well. As broken as I feel tonight, I know that I’ll feel better tomorrow. I know that tears are cleansing and I need to let them out. I'm becoming stronger, more open to the healing that life continually offers me.

As this year comes to an end, and 2006 begins, I ask of myself to be gentle with myself and others, as gentle as I would the most fragile of children. To know what causes pain and to seek healing – in myself and others. I ask myself to let go my expectations others cannot possibly meet, and to deliver those I know they have of me. I ask myself to continue to address the this grief but also to step into the fragrance, music and light of life that is always there. I ask myself to remember that everything is in the round – the moon, the stars, and the curve of the earth. So too our lives. The moon comes and goes but I ask to hold on to my heart. Sadness is there but so too is happiness. I am glad for all that I've had and still have. I ask myself to remember that we’re all in progress, it’s all part of the round.

This is not something for a new year, but for the gift of each new day. I ask myself to remember this. And I ask it of you as well.