time

Doesn't time – or the passage of time – seem so arbitrary at certain points in life? It can seem so fixed and then so fluid so that, on the one hand, today seemed like such a long group of hours – Liam home sick from school for the second day now, up in the night to help him, up early this morning, Ben gone all day ... and yet I can hardly believe that it has been nine weeks since our friend died. Nine weeks, approaching ten, seems both like a lifetime and a blink of an eye. I think of that amount of time in months: almost two and a half months now. And then I think of it in fractions of a year: more than one sixth of one year. And then I think of that amount of time and how it will compare as my own life continues. It's been a hard nine weeks, but life does go on – and that is both healing and heartbreaking.

I know this is an incredibly personal story – and one, actually, that I'm reluctant to share here ... You might have noticed that I've been absent from this space more often than not these past nine weeks. But, here I am, here it is. It's where I am and how I am these days, pushing ever forward, enjoying the crisp fall mornings and warm afternoons, missing my friend, relishing the joy on Liam's face as we round the corner to his new school, working in the studio, meeting new people as we settle into our second year here in Corvallis, staying in touch with old friends, trying not to linger in the 'what-if' world ...

This print is of the piece Ben read at our friend's memorial service. It was Ben's birthday yesterday and so I gave him this print, which we've both always loved, but never expected we'd use in reference to our friend. (You can click on the image below to see it larger.)



When we build, let us think that we build forever.
Let it not be for present delight nor for present use alone.
Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for;
and let us think, as we lay stone on stone,
that a time is to come when those stones will be held
sacred because our hands have touched them,
and that men will say, as they look upon
the labor and wrought substance of them,
"See! This our father did for us."

John Ruskin