We're Too Young For This

Yesterday I was going to bring you a story of the wonderful Mr. in honor of his birthday. He is forty + experience now. Instead, life got the better of me. All in all, a pretty great day, just moving along at a pace faster than the one I enjoy.

Today, I'm having ups and downs. I had a wonderful morning connecting, chatting, hanging out and having coffee. Sometimes it's a great way to kill a day. And I enjoyed it, even if part of the time my mind was wandering.

It has been a split day. Bear with me and I'll tell it to you.

Long ago and far away, I lived in another city, the MadCity, to be specific. While there I was blessed and privileged to be a part of a most wonderful group of moms. We were all in about the same stage of life. New babies. We were not in the same faith stages, but it didn't matter. We were a group that did life together. We lived good and bad together.

Years went by and we had more babies. We all grew and changed. Some of us moved. We had more babies (or got them by other means). Our faith and our friendship grew more.

I'm realising now we've been friends for a long time. A lot of us have our oldest kids in those tweener years. But we're not old. We're not.

At least not old enough.

Last week one of our group lost a parent. It hits close to home and as I thought about it over the week, she's not the first in our little group. I think if I have my numbers right and my memory clear, of the 8 of us, we've laid to rest around 5 parents and had some close calls with a few others.

In my mind, even though we're in the late 30 to early 40's age group, we're too young for this.

So today I went to the funeral for my friend's dad. It was a great tribute to a believer's life. My friend gave a beautiful tribute to her dad.

I did not know him at all, but I do know my friend and I would offer up that she is a living testimony and tribute to her dad.

And my dear friend, I don't care what you say about being a little, tiny bit older than me, we are too young for this.

We are simply too young to be already saying good bye, faith aside, even with the comfort offered knowing that heaven waits, we are too young.

And there is weight these days, knowing yet another friend is suffering without mercy as the ending brings pain from the cruel twist of having a parent "loose touch" before they go. The space where you cannot comfort someone whose parent no longer knows them.

It's disjointed. I know. The thoughts are jumbled, unclear. Forgive me, it's my place to process and my place to plead.

Yes, in this life there are things to get in a huff over, things to rally about, times to be an activist or a protester or so on, there are, but, this life is also short.

Love the people in your life, full out, full in, as much as you are able. Love the people around you, stranger, sinner, saint, love them dearly and fiercely, for this life is short and nothing, nothing counts as much as love.