A nice thing…

Friends came to visit. A young family with a two-year-old girl and a one-month-old boy. They went for a walk, and while they were away, I went to my computer to read and write and communicate.

I fell into an online chat with a friend whose husband is in hospice. I felt helpless for words. I can’t fix it. I can’t walk the path she’s been set upon. I can’t make it better; and words, my best tool in most circumstances, failed me in this one. I kept typing and erasing responses to her, searching for magical words. But, her husband is dying. It’s all that is happening. All that matters. Life for them has zeroed in on this one fact.

My friends came back, and I held the baby. I placed him in my lap and looked at him. He was awake, and would soon want to eat. This is his business, his only work. He eats and sleeps and poops and grows. I watched him, and wondered at the machine he is, the little human machine, doing it’s living work… and I cried. He was too beautiful, and my world zeroed in him. He was all that mattered in that moment. I had no words for it.

A nice thing… there are no words for the terrible beauty and sorrow of being a mortal human being. Sometimes all we can do is reside together in the silence.