To lose someone I love, I cannot comprehend—so young, so vibrant…just barely a woman.

“I am in charge of my own journey. I choose life.”

                                                                                                            Shakti Gawain

“Fret not your souls with puzzles you cannot solve.  The solution may never be shown until you have left this life.” 

God Calling, December 3

I don’t know the answer to the mystery.  But now she has the solution to the puzzle we call life and I am well satisfied that she is out of harm’s way.  Her death, my darlin’, hurts my heart and so I weep for me.
I cling to the sadness, it is precious to me.  Yes, the sadness…it helps me to recognize the sweetness of the time I had her in my life and the joy she brought my way.  I don’t know the solution to the puzzle and I feel the void.

I can share stories and good memories of her and give free reign to my tears.  I could let the tragedy overwhelm me, the doubt creep in, feel He has forsaken me, and retreat into what I call ‘the dark night of my soul.’  Because I don’t have the answer and I miss her.

Grief is supposed to help me heal and make peace with the meaning of death; which I do not understand except to know that it is an unknown part of life.  But it does not give me an explanation and I feel the loss of her earthly spirit.
The paradox in not having the why or the comprehension of,  is that the tears, the tragedy, the doubt, the unknown trigger,  the seeking…and, the result is a far better and closer relationship with this Power that is greater than me.  In life I will always experience and know pain as well as joy, it is part of the human condition.

This seeming contradiction, as strange as it seems to some,  strengthens my belief and I know with a certainty that He is, for He sustains me beyond any human understanding and has filled me with the knowledge that she is safe and free…she is Home.

I know without knowing that without this Faith I would not be able to accept life when it makes no sense, and her death makes no sense.  So, while I don’t know the answer to the puzzle, I do know that Faith is part of it…and mine has grown this day in this Power greater than me. I watch Him sort through and pull together the unfinished pieces of my life, putting them in order, giving the trust within my soul that she is well and I will be too.
It snowed last night, not much, but just enough for me to experience the hush that nature brings as each flake drifts quietly down to earth conveying a great sense of peace.  It fell softly, without fear, without regard for where it would land.  She told me once that she wanted to experience that hush of nature…that great peace.  She did last night, she was with me…and her final gift to me was her presence, giving me that great sense of peace…the absolute Faith that she knows the answer now and all is well.

To feel joy is often a decision no more difficult than to feel sorrow.  I felt joy last night…yes, my beautiful Nichole was part of that joy.  And, although I watched her struggle with life at times, in the wake of her turmoil she always found joy.

Every moment of joy strengthens the spirit and she gave me many moments of joy.  So, it is with a certainty that I know her soul frets no more,  this child of God is in the presence of the solution.
Strange and wonderful happenings, unexplainable, extraordinary, a bit out of sync, maybe even unusual…  Two lives, two women—unknown to one another—one old, one young, converging at a planned time in a specific place—touching each other’s hearts…  Sharing, crying, grieving; but mostly laughing, loving and living…always to be a part of my life, my Nichole…I was truly blessed.

“Every life is a profession of faith and exercises an inevitable,  inestimable and silent influence.”

Henri Frederic Amiel