Dates

Dates

One deals with life as life presents itself, and to whom would one complain anyway, and thank you kindly for the pinched graphic. 

Life is life, and it’s the way it is, take it or leave it, and for the most part most of us will take most of it. Seared into memory are some dates we would rather not carry, but Time is an unshakable concept of the human brain and with a calendar to mark it.

Happily remember wedding anniversary and birthdays. Remember the first moment seeing each of my children when they were barely minutes old. Remember being allowed to hold one. Remember my retirement dates, February 1, 1978 and October 1, 1998. Remember a few death dates, the day President Roosevelt died. The day my grandmother died, my first personal experience with human death; the dates my parents died. The bright white light over the table, white room, white clothing of doctor and nurses when I was two years old for tonsillectomy, don’t remember the date but brilliant, glaring white! Tuesday, September 2, 1941 looking around a strange classroom in Cove School and realizing that mama had left while Miss Violet Hayward was having me kick at a yardstick to determine whether she'd make me left-handed or right-handed. Sunday, September 13, 1953 set free as a freshman at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Monday, January 24, 2011 waking up in my first day of +Time and saying, “I’m alive!” 

July 12, 2012, sitting on a deck, crouched over in grieving, intensly bitter anger, looking out across St. Andrews Bay and praying, “What the hell’s the matter with you, God?” A year ago today, still and forever no answer except it’s the way it is. My faith in grace is strong enough to keep asking and my God is big enough to love me anyway from the Silence.

TW+ 

SABYC. Sound of Sheer Silence. Sky over St. Andrews Bay an hour after Bill Lloyd died. July 12, 2012.