An Ember in the Night

I left Facebook months ago. I will never see or speak to most of those people again. I won't know if they had babies or grandbabies, if they got married or divorced, or even if they died. Sometimes I'll swear I see someone's profile in a car driving down our street, or I'll feel a momentary certainty that the back of a head at the gas station belongs to someone I knew.  But, that's silly, of course. No doubt it used to be this way, before social media. Most relationships have always been transient, to various extents. Still, it's strange to leave so many people behind in a single swoop. To some extent, I feel relief. I don't have to worry about saying the wrong thing or being too much. I don't find myself waking up at 3 am thinking, OMG, why the f*** did I share that? Delete, delete, delete. It's an unfortunate reality that I am less anxious when I avoid people. But I also feel, not so much loneliness, but grief.  I actually feel rather great sadness...

  Today we found ourselves looking out upon the Baptism River. Along its banks, cedar trees clung to the mottled rock with twisted roots. Below, the water was dark as obsidian and smooth as satin, its surface a mirror of loveliness. Were we to fall in, it would swiftly swallow us into its blackness. Nature has a way of reminding us of this simple truth; that life and death are entwined, and we cannot have one without the other. The last leaves of Autumn fluttered from branches and their saffron hues glowed radiant amidst the beams of sunlight, as if to declare in their dying breaths that they had seen the light and that Heaven was indeed prepared to welcome them into another life. I don't believe in Heaven, but I believe in the wonder of all that exists in this world. I believe in its ceaseless beauty, and I feel a sense of awe, knowing that we are each a part of that. When I die, the water that flows through my veins will become the rain. From the rain, trees will grow, filling th...