Grief

 Life can be so beautiful sometimes...and it can also be so darn hard. This is an era when I have some of the most amazing everyday moments: walking down the hall discussing infinity with my group of kindergarteners in ESL, making music with a group of octogenarians (and beyond!), preparing for shows before the rehearsal season begins, sharing visits with friends from near and far.

However, it is also an era of so much grief. I grieve for the world: there is so much hatred amidst this new nationalism, and ultimately we all get hurt. I grieve for the nation: we are in the middle of a new kind of civil war and Humpty Dumpty is cracking. I grieve for immigrant families: so many live in so much fear right now. I grieve for the trees and the air and the polar bears and the water and...
I'm also in my 50s and am so lucky to have so many mentors and friends and family members who are a generation older than I am. But I feel the shifting of generations as, one by one, elderly icons of my life die. A former conductor, a loving curmudgeon friend, a father figure who welcomed me each Thanksgiving--all have become memories this year. And now, now I'm spending much of my time handling my Dad's painful decline.
Everybody grieves differently. And the grief process isn't linear. The sorrow, anger, fear, bargaining, and denial all dance around in our enduring souls, stomping on us, as we see people we love suffer and fade. I wish I could make things better. I wish the feelings (physical and emotional) weren't so painful.
But here we are. The best of times and the worst of times.
My heart is full.

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