I'll Fly Away, Oh Glory

Mm, right now I am enjoying some home made raspberry-strawberry-blackberry ice cream. My parents have this Ben&Jerry's recipe book from the 80's and the guys on the cover (Ben & Jerry) look like Simon & Garfunkle. It's good ice cream. // Today at work, I was filing papers and listening to some older guys gripe about Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga. Ha. I also finally figured out how to work a combination lock - my supervisor was giving me a hard time about being home schooled, which for once is probably the reason for my lack of expertise. // Everyone's Christmas trees are sitting out on the curb, looking sad and naked. You know what would make it happy? Going home to home made apple sauce. I really like apple sauce. Also, I think that saying goodbye is helped when you have something to look forward to. With apple sauce, abandoned trees would just feel like an acceptable loss of the season. {Luke's Beard}

Today I finished Don Miller's new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It caused involuntary laughter and tears and seemed to speak to very, very current issues in my heart. Toward the end, he describes the death of the wife of a friend of his and the days leading up to it. In the last week or so, a family friend from China has reached the last few days of her life. She is dying from cancer. I've been thinking a lot about it. She is a photographer and took me around a city in China once to coach me on taking good pictures. I do not know her well, but she is a part of the fabric that is China to me and it seems alien to pull a thread away. I think it is comforting for those who have more life yet to complete to know that this friend is close to Jesus and surrounded by people who love her. I still feel helpless at the fact that there is nothing in my power or that of any human to prolong the stay of a person that Jesus is calling home. I feel like the fact that I have a chance to say goodbye and that those of us who know this friend are dwelling in our minds about what is happening is an experience that I can not fully process. To see the end of your life or another's approaching is not something I have ever thought about. I've always thought of death as a sudden thing which one can only deal with afterward. I don't have a resolving statement for these thoughts. I am trying to allow myself to feel and to let go and to accept that there is joy and in fact a plan in something that feels like an utter loss.