It's not that it goes too fast, it's just that it goes at all.

I had a dream about my Mom early this morning.  I've been dreaming about her more than ever.  It's a relief in that she looks alive and healthy, but it's emotionally draining because I am always cognizant of the fact that our time is limited and she is going to die soon.  The details of my morning's dream are already sketchy, but the sadness that overcame me is not...it is lingering and palpable.  I woke with tears in my eyes and an ache in my heart. It hurts just as bad as it did four years ago when we first had to swallow, "There's nothing more we can do."  Everyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one speaks of those moments when life as normal is cruising on by, and then suddenly the realization that a mother or father or child or spouse or sibling really is gone sets in again.  They are gone.  They are gone forever.  Life is many things, but not normal.  This happens to me all the time. Just the other day I picked up the phone to call my Mom about something insignificant.  I got as far a 964 before reality stopped me.  I sat stunned for a minute unable to move a muscle as if I'd been turned to stone.  I can't call her anymore.  Ouch.  Ever.  Ouch.  I put the phone down and just started speaking.  We don't need a phone to connect us these days.

We are getting up in the dark now most mornings.  It took even longer for it to feel like day this morning because it is a quintessential fall day: grey and gloomy...lazy to be recreated.  Last night's rain is to blame for the sea of leaves that now covers the ground.  The muted sky makes their vibrant colors all the more kaleidoscopic.  Yesterday's 70s have moved on and it is in back in the more seasonal 50s.  This is the best kind of fall day.

On my way to work this morning, I thought about how I love driving along the lake especially on mornings like this.    Lake Michigan looks vast and deep and cold.  It makes me me feel small, and yet a part of something bigger.  From my view, it is infinite, but I know there is another shore on the other side of the wavy water.  It reminds me that I have a body, but I am a soul.  I like to think I'm vast and deep like the lake, but I'm anything but cold in my car.  I'm singing along on automatic to a Jack Johnson CD.  The words don't even register until I hear myself sing....It's not that it goes too fast, it's just that it goes at all.  I rewind it at least a half dozen times.  Today, that pretty much says it all.